With over 12,000 miles of instrumented roadway and over 3,000 transportation sensors deployed, FDOT generates a wealth of data to help fulfill its traffic operations mission. However, this data can be used to support so much more than live traffic operations. In order to get the most value out of its ITS infrastructure investment, the Department needed to find a way to share this rich, ground-truth data. This "one-stop shop" for Florida’s statewide mobility and operational data reflects a core element of the Transportation Systems Management & Operations (TSM&O) Software Program’s vision.

In 2003, the University of Florida (UF) developed a prototype Central Data Warehouse (CDW), known as the Statewide Transportation Warehouse for Archived Regional Data (STEWARD). STEWARD proved the concept to be very useful, as evidenced by the support received from FDOT's Planning Office. As more users were becoming dependent upon FDOT's CDW system, the need for a production system with higher reliability was identified and FDOT began its search for a production CDW solution.

In 2012, FDOT contracted with the University of Maryland (UMD) to host FDOT's data and use the tools provided by their Regional Integrated Transportation Information System (RITIS). RITIS has a fleet of servers and storage systems to provide the horsepower, reliability, and accessibility necessary to deliver high performance through an easy-to-use Graphical User Interface (GUI). RITIS is one of the ways FDOT turns raw data into actionable information.

RITIS has all the standard features one would expect from a CDW system specializing in real-time and historical transportation analytics. As shown in the pictures below, the GUI facilitates intuitive user interaction. The images below show a live traffic map with detector and incident locations, an incident list, and an incident timeline. Other tools include heat maps of traffic flow and a web query system for archived data. FDOT also had a few unique requirements that were met by enhancements to RITIS. New tools developed specifically for FDOT's needs include travel-time reliability, roadway performance measures, and an Application Programming Interface (API) for FDOT-developed tools to access and process data. RITIS is also used by the FDOT Planning and Safety Offices, as well as university and consulting firms, for a variety of research, analysis, system improvement projects, and other endeavors.