Expediting Broadband to Rural America

Anh Selissen, Chief Information Officer, Texas Department of Transportation

Q1What are your current roles and responsibilities at Texas Department of Transport? 

As the chief information officer for TxDOT, I manage all TxDOT networks state-wide, the digital services, hardware and software infrastructure for all the enterprise applications and security components associated with all our digital services. I’m responsible for nearly $500 million in project and operation related funds. 

Q2How are the new projects sanctioned at TxDOT? 

We have a CIO advisory committee, made up of individuals from the twenty-five districts and divisions across the state, selected by the executive team. Together, they comprise the entire engineering operations department at TxDOT. Every new project is considered an enterprise. The new projects are then submitted to the divisions and districts committee where multiple people can discuss the impact of operational efficiencies and cost savings of the project on the agency. The project will then go through a bidding process to request approval from the committee's board members for the prioritization of work. The project will begin to take shape after the approval with resourcing coming in from IT. It is a very systematic and fair process where all enterprise projects must pass through a common set of criteria so that the right projects get moved forward at the right time.

Q3.What were the steps that you implemented to mandate the improvement of IT for every TxDOT employee?

When I first got to TxDOT, the information technology group was never seen as a true partner; a lot of people viewed IT as a hindrance to their progress. IT was viewed to be focusing on things that weren't really critical to the agency. 

The other departments had to work around IT and it wasn't viewed as a collaborative or partnership type of division. IT was not really focusing on implementing anything of importance that would really bring value to the work that TxDOT does. I gathered all the key divisions and district personnel and leadership personnel, to really speak and understand their issues and how we can better collaborate and be informed about what we can do from an IT perspective.

"People will follow along with you when they know you care and clearly understand your focus, strategy, mission and objectives"

Taking that feedback, I then created a business relationship management program where each district and each division had key personnel that would focus on their needs and be their own point of context for IT to help facilitate their priorities. With a ‘can do’ attitude, they delivered on what was promised, to make life easier working at TxDOT. So through the CIO advisory board, we were able to make momentum on some key projects involving construction and safety of roads. And through the BRMs, the key personnel were able to provide quick solutions to tickets, when the need arrived, fixing key and technical issues, without having to wait for the IT. 

Q4 What are the strategies used by TxDOT to provide broadband across the rural areas of Texas state?

Two years ago, when I first got here, there were a lot of TxDOT offices in the metro, urban and rural areas that were struggling to get broadband in their offices. In the last couple of years, we've implemented a huge initiative that is broken up into phases to get some of these key offices up to a minimal level of broadband. We've also looked at the different technologies to expand broadband across the state. In addition, we built public-private partnerships to make advancements in how to implement broadband technologies that share a single model. We're working closely with these big vendors like AT&T while also considering partnerships that leverage the huge broadband networks of academic universities. We are looking to expand TxDOT broadband capabilities, so our offices can function while also getting broadband to some of these rural areas in non-conventional and conventional ways. 

Q5How do you envision the future at TxDOT?

TxDOT is working closely with the traffic safety division; we're actually building out a technology traffic team focused on looking at how we can better encapsulate some of the technologies that we really need to implement on our road ways. In the next year or two we're building a strong team that understands transportations and how some of these autonomous technologies can really help with road safety.

I get to be a part of this IT fronted operation which will involve CAV data and network to facilitate data getting in and out of cars and then into data depositories. In analysing and implementing this CAV data we can really help avoid congested routes and to make safer judgements on road.