├── 7-advancement.md ├── 8-progressing.md ├── README.md ├── 1-problem.md ├── B-business-plan.md ├── 3-solution-overview.md ├── 5-starting-point.md ├── 0-addressing-original-proposal.md ├── 2-attributes-of-science.md ├── 4-peer-review.md ├── 6-decision-making.md └── A-foundation-structure.md /7-advancement.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## 5 - Advancement of Practice 2 | 3 | There are multiple programs that will be administered in order to advance the practice of travel analysis. 4 | 5 | ### Project Peer Review and Publishing 6 | 7 | ### Open Travel Analysis Tools Library 8 | 9 | ### Data Standards 10 | 11 | ### Development Tools and Training 12 | 13 | ### Data Tools and Training 14 | 15 | ### Targeted Research Grants 16 | 17 | ### Advanced Practice Grants 18 | 19 | [Next: 8 - Progressing this Proposal](8-progressing.md) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /8-progressing.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## 6 - Progressing this Proposal 2 | 3 | ### Progress to Date 4 | A session at the 2016 TRB Annual Meeting was devoted to discussing the strengths, 5 | weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to the original straw man program proposal. This session generated significant interest as well as raised significant concerns. 6 | 7 | Since the 2016 Annual meeting, multiple groups of stakeholders have held discussions about the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal and how to progress it. 8 | 9 | ### Next Steps 10 | Because of the interest generated at the TRB Annual Meeting, a session (or two) at the 2016 Innovations in Travel Modeling Conference in Denver CO will be dedicated to progressing the discussion. 11 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # travel-modeling-as-science 2 | 3 | A collaborative, evolving, proposal to improve travel modeling research and practice 4 | 5 | [0 - Response to Original Proposal](0-addressing-original-proposal.md) 6 | [1 - Problem](1-problem.md) 7 | [2 - Defining Features of Science](2-attributes-of-science.md) 8 | [3 - Overview of Solution](3-solution-overview.md) 9 | [4 - Publishing and Peer Review](4-peer-review.md) 10 | [5 - Starting Point](5-starting-point.md) 11 | [6 - Decision-making](6-decision-making.md) 12 | [7 - Advancement](7-advancement.md) 13 | [8 - Progressing this Proposal](8-progressing.md) 14 | 15 | 16 | Appendices: 17 | 18 | [A - Foundation Structure](A-foundation-structure.md) 19 | [B - Business Plan](B-business-plan.md) 20 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /1-problem.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## 1. Problem 2 | 3 | Is Travel Modeling Science or Engineering? 4 | 5 | Merriam Webster defines science and engineering as follows: 6 | 7 | **[Science](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science)**: 8 | > Knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation. 9 | 10 | **[Engineering](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/engineering)**: 11 | > [A] The application of science and mathematics by which the properties of matter and the 12 | sources of energy in nature are made useful to people. 13 | 14 | > [B] The design and manufacture of complex products. 15 | 16 | It could be argued that various aspects of travel modeling exists as either a science or 17 | engineering discipline as follows: 18 | 19 | **Science** 20 | 21 | *Aspects of travel modeling that are directly observable and can be empirically tested 22 | to support a theory* 23 | - travel behavior research including psychology, sociology, and behavioral economics 24 | - traffic flow theory, car following behavior 25 | - network analysis 26 | - etc. 27 | 28 | **Engineering** 29 | 30 | *Aspects of travel modeling that synthesize the science and mathematics into something 31 | useful to people include:* 32 | - ridership forecasting 33 | - project level forecasting 34 | - discrete choice model estimation results 35 | - long-range forecasting 36 | - toll-road forecasting 37 | - etc. 38 | 39 | What has been historically been described as "travel model development" fits in with Webster's 40 | second definition of *Engineering*, as *the design and manufacture of complex products:* 41 | - discrete choice modeling 42 | - agent-based modeling 43 | - activity-based travel models 44 | - aggregate, four-step travel models 45 | - dynamic traffic assignment 46 | - static traffic assignment 47 | - etc. 48 | 49 | **From Science to Engineering** 50 | 51 | Travel forecasting practice lacks a rigorous approach to (A) prioritizing advances in science 52 | that will result in more usefulness to people as well as (B) synthesizing these advances into 53 | engineering practice. 54 | 55 | [Next: 2 - Defining Features of Science](2-attributes-of-science.md) 56 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /B-business-plan.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## Business Plan 2 | 3 | ### Anticipated Costs 4 | 5 | Baseline costs will include: 6 | * Legal 7 | * Insurance 8 | * Accounting 9 | * Communications 10 | * Staffing for minimum of two FTEs and their office space 11 | * Misc Overhead including printing, calls, apps, etc. 12 | * Base level of programming 13 | 14 | A ballpark estimate of baseline costs is $400,000 per year. 15 | 16 | ### Potential Funding Sources 17 | 18 | Federal Earmark – While a Federal earmark in many ways is the most appealing source of funding, it is neither reliable nor in the spirit of the opt-in nature of this proposal. It is suggested that Federal funds are only used for starting up or testing new programs or concepts. 19 | 20 | Membership Dues – Membership dues from organizations that would benefit from the work of the NGO would best be used to support baseline operations. Membership dues should be below the level that triggers significant paperwork/review at a typical public agency and have varying levels based on the size and significance of the organization. Memberships can be sold to both public and private institutions. Membership levels are anticipated to be in the $5,000 - $25,000 per year range. As a reference point, NACTO membership dues are $10,000 per year. At this level, the organization would need to sell approximately 40 memberships to achieve baseline operations. 21 | 22 | Pooled Funds – States have greater flexibility in contributing towards pooled funds because of the more relaxed nature of the required local matches. This mechanism is more cumbersome to establish and thus should be used for more significant projects such as developing an Activity-Based Modeling Platform. 23 | 24 | ### Potential Staffing Options 25 | 26 | While the organization is establishing itself, it is likely best to have a small group of contractors act as the staff of the organization. This prevents the organization from having any significant human resource overhead and provides greater flexibility for the near future after evaluating how the first few years of the organization proceed. That said, it will be important to select staff-contractors that are knowledgeable and trusted in the field that do not have anticipated conflicts of interest with the business of the organization. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /3-solution-overview.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## 2. Proposed Solution 2 | 3 | The remainder of this document introduces and discusses a Travel Analysis Improvement program that is administered by an independent 501c3 organization. 4 | 5 | **Mission Statement** 6 | 7 | The organization advocates, facilitates, and supports the modernization of the travel analysis industry to be responsive to stakeholder needs. 8 | 9 | **Goals** 10 | 11 | * Serve as a clearinghouse of useful planning tools and methods and an incubator for development of innovative planning methods that can be applied in regions, cities, and neighborhoods across the country. 12 | 13 | * Provide critical infrastructure (legal, funding, hosting) to support the development of travel analysis tools and methods. 14 | 15 | * Guide research toward useful outcomes for stakeholders. 16 | 17 | * Ensure tools developed under its guidance meet the most stringent software engineering and quality control standards. 18 | 19 | * Encourage the use of open data standards and interoperability across planning tools and related products. 20 | 21 | * Teach basic core competency in modern travel analysis skills, through workshops, online materials, and training. 22 | 23 | * Convene an initial conference to launch the first tranche of supported initiatives, possibly in cooperation with related efforts (e.g., TRB). 24 | 25 | **Approach** 26 | 27 | Ultimately, travel modeling will advance through specific projects undertaken by a broad array of actors, including public agency staff, consulting firms, researchers, software vendors, and others. The organization anticipates playing two key roles in facilitating projects: 28 | 29 | * Publishing projects -- Anyone may submit a project and ask for it to be reviewed for "publication". This review ensures that the project conforms to a basic standard of data recording and sharing, and reproducibility. An accepted project will be hosted and made available to our users. 30 | 31 | * Incubating projects -- Incubating a project implies a higher level of involvement, where the project is actively developed to make it more broadly usable. 32 | 33 | The remainder of this document provides specific organizational details, and describes each of these roles. 34 | 35 | [Next: 4 - Publishing and Peer Review](4-peer-review.md) 36 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /5-starting-point.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## 5 - Starting Points for Incubated Projects 2 | 3 | The organization will be set up to be flexible to the needs of the industry. We anticipate a wide array of involved stakeholders, who will advocate for a mosaic of complementary projects spanning the many interests and needs of our industry. The board will be in charge of what projects are undertaken. That said, there are a number of core activities, longstanding needs and suitable example projects that are outlined in this section in order to have more substance in the proposal. 4 | 5 | ### Potential Core Activities 6 | 7 | #### Library 8 | 9 | Serve as a clearinghouse of useful planning tools and methods. 10 | 11 | #### Training 12 | 13 | Teach basic core competency in modern travel analysis skills, through workshops, online materials, and training. An example of the type of training envisioned is the set of trainings developed by the organization Software Carpentry and recently modified by [PSRC](https://github.com/psrc/novice-python). 14 | 15 | #### Research Direction 16 | 17 | Direct research funds towards promising research projects. 18 | 19 | ### Potential Incubated Projects 20 | 21 | #### ActivitySim 22 | 23 | [ActivitySim](http://github.com/UDST/activitysim) is a collaboratively managed Python codebase that is capable of executing a state of the practice activity-based travel demand model. It has an active set of core contributors, reviewers, and supporters. 24 | 25 | #### Fast-Trips 26 | 27 | [Fast-Trips](https://github.com/MetropolitanTransportationCommission/fast-trips) is a collaboratively developed person-based dynamic transit assignment. 28 | 29 | #### Regional Travel Modeling as a Science 30 | 31 | Develop a research, testing and award system for methods and processes that improve the status quo of regional travel modeling as dictated by a set of defined performance measures and observed data in regional test beds. 32 | 33 | #### Regional Test Beds 34 | 35 | Support and maintain regional test-bed data sets to enable rigorous testing of our regional modeling tools. 36 | 37 | 38 | #### Other projects that could be considered 39 | 40 | There are a variety of other projects that have considerable user-bases that could also be considered such as: 41 | [GreenSTEP/RSPM](https://github.com/gregorbj/RSPM) 42 | [DTALite](https://sites.google.com/site/dtalite/) 43 | [SynthPop](https://github.com/UDST/synthpop) 44 | [CycleTracks](https://github.com/sfcta/CycleTracks) 45 | [Transit Reliability Toolbox](https://github.com/sfcta/delay_distribution) 46 | 47 | ### Potential Managed Standards 48 | 49 | #### OMX 50 | 51 | [Open Matrix Format](https://sites.google.com/site/openmodeldata/) 52 | 53 | #### GTFS-Plus 54 | 55 | [GTFS-Plus](https://github.com/osplanning-data-standards/GTFS-PLUS) is a transit network specification that is compatible with GTFS tools yet capable of being used for dynamic transit assignment. 56 | 57 | 58 | [Next: 6 - Decision-making](6-decision-making.md) 59 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /0-addressing-original-proposal.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## 0. Addressing stakeholder comments about TRB January 2016 “Strawman” Proposal 2 | 3 | ### Criticisms 4 | 5 | The original strawman proposal initiated a great discussion at TRB. There are many problems with how our industry develops models, and the strawman was a first attempt at addressing many of them. Primarily it attempts to consolidate the many disparate, duplicative initiatives by creating an end goal that can be measured... "scientifically". 6 | 7 | The audience was instructed to poke holes in it, and they did so =). 8 | 9 | Criticisms fell into many categories; I'm paraphrasing their essence here. Please add others I may have missed: 10 | 11 | **Just One Model.** A single model can’t possibly work for all cities and regions. Unlike weather forecasters, we aren't trying to predict one global phenomenon. Different questions are asked in different regions; and we know individual cities and local municipalities want different tools to study their local problems than a large regional travel model. 12 | 13 | **TRANSIMS-2.** A top-down, bureaucratically prescribed model is exactly what TRANSIMS was intended to be, and TRANSIMS might have some merits but it is market failure because it wasn't user or stakeholder driven. 14 | 15 | **Lack of applied researchers/scientists.** Even if we could make the model development process more scientific, we simply don't have a pool of qualified talent interested in creating useful models -- even if we funded it. 16 | 17 | **Committee Structure.** How are those five members of ADB40 chosen? This "star chamber" committee has enormous influence on the final design of the model product. 18 | 19 | **Lack of practitioner/decisionmaker feedback.** A team of five expert model developers will have different opinions on what makes a great model, compared to model users/practitioners, planners, and decisionmakers. The strawman proposal has no input from users of models. 20 | 21 | **Science vs. Art vs. Engineering.** Human behavior is inherently unscientific; trying to force a scientific approach on the field may not work. Pure scientific research isn’t as useful as engineering a solution. 22 | 23 | **Where's the Money.** We should put the money where interesting questions are and not where we are merely checking a box. 24 | 25 | ### Proposed Iteration 26 | 27 | The key difference proposed here is replacing the "One True Model" approach with a more decentralized organizing structure that incubates multiple independent projects. Each project has a fair amount of autonomy, but is guided by principles and best practices agreed to by the organization. The organization proposed is an independent, non-profit foundation. The governing Board of the foundation selects the projects which get incubated, reducing the amount of duplication going on. 28 | 29 | At ITM 2014 in Baltimore, a similar discussion arose on creating a non-profit foundation that could guide model development. There are many existing examples of this type of foundation structure in other fields; most relevant are the software-focused efforts such as the Mozilla and Apache Foundations. 30 | 31 | These foundations are based on the concept of "meritocracy" -- literally, government by merit. Instead of choosing One True Model, multiple projects are incubated and the market can decide which ones are valuable. Anyone can be a foundation member as long as they have exhibited merit via code or other community contributions that people value. Instead of a hand-picked committee of five ADB40 modelers, foundation members occasionally elect a Board (hopefully based on merit). No seats or positions are "saved" for organizations specifically; people represent themselves. The Board decides which projects to incubate, and assigns a chair to run that project. 32 | 33 | Each incubated project is free to manage itself how it sees fit: so, many of the guiding "scientific" approaches in the original strawman can be carried over if they are considered valuable by the members working on that project. The Board could even provide a framework for this: software best-practices, validation approaches, etc. 34 | 35 | [Next: 1 - Problem](1-problem.md) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /2-attributes-of-science.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## 1.5 Defining Features of Science 2 | 3 | Merriam Webster defines science and engineering as follows: 4 | 5 | **[Science](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science)**: 6 | > Knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation. 7 | 8 | The scientific method is the process by which science is conducted, and is based on the elements of: question, hypothesis, prediction, testing and analysis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method). 9 | 10 | However, going back to Galileo's *Two New Sciences*, it has been recognized that even with a strong scientific process, additional community-level components are required to ensure the validity and credibility of science. These include: 11 | 12 | * Data recording and sharing 13 | * Reproducibility 14 | * External review 15 | 16 | Scientific journals have long been central to ensuring that these community needs are met, by recording the data from experiments, sharing the methods of those experiments so they can be reproduced elsewhere, and providing a mechanism for external reviews. However, as our data sets become larger, and our models more complex, the limits of the scientific paper as the basic unit of trade are increasingly clear. While we do not challenge the core role that journals should continue to play, we also recognize that a complementary mechanism is needed to further promote these community scientific goals. 17 | 18 | **Issues in Travel Modeling** 19 | 20 | Even in cases where the model is well formulated and clearly expressed mathematically in an available peer-reviewed paper, it can still be a major challenge to reproduce and build upon existing research. It may be that the software or data are sitting on a grad student's computer, and if not properly archived there is a risk that the knowledge becomes inaccessible. When it is acceptable, if care is not taken, the code may be impenetrable to anyone other than the original author. Or it may be that the model is carefully crafted to work in one specific instance, so applying the model to a different city is challenging. 21 | 22 | The emergence of open-source software and collaborative development sites, such as Github, are an important step towards moving beyond these challenges, because they ensure that the source code is recorded and open to external review and external use. However, making the source code available is not a sufficient step to ensuring that a model can be shared and used in a practical sense. This is for two reasons. First, there is much more that goes into making a model run that simply having the code. There are typically input data, parameters, and other materials that could be archived with the code, but often are not. Second, in order to be usable in a practical sense, the model and the software must be specifically engineered to be shared. Unless there is some mechanism to ensure that what is shared is not just available, but also accessible to an educated user, we may end up with nothing more than large amounts of spaghetti code. 23 | 24 | The challenges of sharing and advancing models in practice are similar to the challenges of sharing and advancing the research. Often, the models for each city are so bespoke that it is difficult to apply them elsewhere. Even more limiting is a situation where a model is customized to the point that there is no way of knowing whether the model results are valid for more than one point in time. When discussing reproducible science in for travel forecasting, the goal is really that it should be reproducible in multiple locations, and across multiple years. 25 | Otherwise, it is difficult to know whether a finding applies more broadly, or a model works more generally. 26 | 27 | Specific examples of travel modeling projects can be found that do a laudable job of meeting these larger goals of data recording and sharing, reproducibility, and external review. ActivitySim is one example that has evolved as a collaboration among several public agencies. It is an activity-based travel model designed specifically to be applied in multiple locations, such that the agencies involved can pool their resources to advance the whole, rather than spending their effort recreating what others have done. 28 | 29 | **Principles of Travel Modeling as Science** 30 | 31 | It is ultimately that ready extension of existing work that this endeavour seeks to enable, both as a means of ensuring the validity of the existing research, and to enable future research to progress efficiently. We propose that the community-level components of science can be adapted to travel modeling using three core principles: 32 | 33 | * Data sharing and recording -- Someone, other than the original developer, should be able to download and use the model. 34 | * Reproducibility -- The model should work for more than one location, and for more than one point in time. 35 | * External review -- Performance measures should be reported for more than one location, and for more than one point in time, allowing for external review of model outcomes. 36 | 37 | The following sections outline a proposed approach to promoting the adoption of these principles in travel modeling and to advancing travel modeling as a science. 38 | 39 | [Next: 3 - Overview of Solution](3-solution-overview.md) 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /4-peer-review.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## 2.5 Publishing and Peer Review 2 | 3 | The goal of the publication process is to make available modeling tools that can be used or built on by the broader community. By this, we mean a complete tool that can be downloaded and run for a new location. A peer review process will be implemented for submitted projects. This process will complement, not replace, existing academic journals. The journals will be left to adjudicate the scientific content of research, while this organization will focus its review on whether the project meets basic standards of openness and usability. We will take steps to make the publication certification a prestigious achievement--one that can be bragged about alongside a journal article. 4 | 5 | 6 | **Process** 7 | 8 | The organization will maintain an editorial board, which will operate much like the editorial board of a journal. That board will maintain a much broader network of peer reviewers, with skills in different types of software systems and different types of models. 9 | 10 | The basic standard for publication is listed in the review criteria. This will be judged by one or more peer reviewers who will be asked to download and test the model themselves. To respect their time, the goal is that this would take about the amount of time a paper review for a high-quality journal might take (likely not more than one day). 11 | 12 | 13 | **Review Criteria** 14 | 15 | The reviewers will be asked to score the project in the following areas. 16 | 17 | *Is the project relevant to travel modeling, and is it useful?* 18 | 19 | This is simply to affirm that we seek to advance travel modeling specifically, and not all of science anywhere. 20 | 21 | *Can someone, other than the original developer, download and use the model?* 22 | 23 | Are all of the software, data, parameters and related materials included, such that the model can be run by a third party? If proprietary software is used, is that software generally available, and is the exact version documented? Is both the operation and mechanics of the model clearly documented? Generally, can someone who is not the author follow what is going on. 24 | 25 | *Does the model should work for more than one location, and for more than one point in time?* 26 | 27 | In travel modeling, our goal is that the model be useful for other places, not just in one very specific circumstance. Further, out interest is in models that work for do not simply replicate existing conditions, but produce meaningful results over multiple years. 28 | 29 | The authors will be expected to provide the inputs to set it up to run in multiple locations for multiple points in time, and the reviewer will simply verify. To facilitate this process, the organization will provide inputs in a standard format for selected cities and selected years, which authors may choose to use if they wish. 30 | 31 | *Are performance measures reported for more than one location, and for more than one point in time?* 32 | 33 | To enable the external evaluation of the model, performance measures should be reported for more than one location and for more than one point in time. We do not require that the performance measures be good--just that they be reported. It is perfectly acceptable for a model to produce poor results as long as the process by which those results were obtained is documented and transparent. 34 | 35 | **Scoring System** 36 | 37 | The scoring system will be adapted from the RAND Europe quality assurance system. The scoring options will be: 38 | 39 | * 6 - Exceptionally good: novel, innovative, adds to and develops current best practice. 40 | * 5 - Excellent work at the cutting edge of current practice. 41 | * 4 - Appropriate work that reaches the standards required for publication. 42 | * 3 - Needs minor refinement or correction to meet criteria. 43 | * 2 - Needs significant revision to conform to criteria. 44 | * 1 - Fundamentally flawed. 45 | 46 | Projects will be expected to achieve a score of 4 or better in each of the key review criteria to be published. There will be options for revisions to projects that do not meet the standards on the first submittal. 47 | 48 | **What the Review Does Not Cover** 49 | 50 | As should be clear from the criteria, the focus here is on the openness and share-ability of the project, rather than on the underlying scientific merit. We defer to the traditional academic journals and scientific review process to judge the latter, and thus we complement, rather than compete with those journals. Submitted projects should note whether the associated research has been published in a peer reviewed journal or otherwise undergone peer review. In the case of existing methods (developed by someone else), those methods should be referenced. This information will help our users in evaluating whether the merits of the work have been scrutinized. Likewise, it is desirable for any associated papers to reference the published project. This gives readers the opportunity to actually use the project, and increases the overall exposure of the endeavour. 51 | 52 | The criteria are intended to be broad enough that many different kinds of travel modeling research can conform. For example, we suggest that projects report performance measures, but do not specify what those performance measures are, because they may be different for different types of projects. The goal is that published projects meet a basic standard, not that they be flawlessly engineered software projects. There is room for further advancement through project incubation. 53 | 54 | **Publication** 55 | 56 | When a project is published, the organization will host it and make it available to our users. Users can access it with a degree of confidence that everything is available such that they can download it and use it themselves, with a moderate degree of effort. Authors will retain ownership and commit rights to the project such that they can continue to develop it as they see fit. The version that was peer reviewed will be tagged such that that exact version can be referenced for future use. 57 | 58 | [Next: 5 - Starting Point](5-starting-point.md) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /6-decision-making.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## 4 - Decision-Making Organization 2 | 3 | A non-profit organization as described in [A - Foundation Structure](A-foundation-structure.md) will be charged with providing the key infrastructure (legal, educational, and organizational) needed to facilitate innovation and implementation of good travel analysis practices. 4 | 5 | ### Board 6 | The organization will be overseen by a seven-member board comprised of travel analysis researchers, developers, users, and stakeholders. 7 | 8 | ### Project Selection 9 | One of the first challenges will be selecting the initial set of initiatives that will be actively supported. There are many candidates already in existence; some of them are at least partially duplicative or competitive with each other. The foundation doesn’t want to be “kingmaker” but with limited resources, reality dictates the need for careful selection and stewardship. 10 | 11 | ### Officers 12 | The Officers of the foundation oversee the day-to-day affairs of the Foundation. The officers are elected by the Board of Directors. 13 | 14 | ### Standing Committees 15 | An initial set of standing committees will be responsible for continuing operations and charge of the organization. Standing committees must contain at 16 | 17 | * Administration – including legal, financial, and human resources 18 | * Communication – including websites and graphic identity 19 | 20 | Over time, if the annual operations budget exceeds certain amounts, some of the administrative responsibilities will need to be broken out and a separate Audit Committee will be required. 21 | 22 | ### Program and Project Management Committees 23 | Program and project management committees (PMCs) are charged with the oversight and execution of particular program area or project. The board will decide which programs and projects get taken on by the organization. 24 | 25 | Example program and project committees: 26 | 27 | * Data Standards – while specific data standards may have individual projects associated with them, there are some aspects of standards that are universal in nature. 28 | * Training and Technology Transfer – specific projects should have plans for technology transfer and implementation, but general training on a core set of topics should be a persistent program. 29 | * Fast-Trips – a project committee overseeing the development of person-based dynamic transit assignment. 30 | * Test Beds – a program to maintain and develop data for regional test-beds to enable consistent testing of methodology improvements. 31 | * Open Source Travel Analysis Library – a program to create a library of open source modeling tools and methods. 32 | * Route-Choice Models - a project committee charged with directing, supporting, and disseminating research and methods related to route choice modeling. 33 | 34 | ### ROLES 35 | Typical roles within each individual project community include: 36 | 37 | * stakeholder 38 | * user 39 | * contributor 40 | * associate 41 | 42 | #### STAKEHOLDER 43 | A stakeholder is someone that has an interest in the results of the project in order to better accomplish their job. They contribute to the foundation projects by providing feedback to the PMC about the overall direction and needs of the project. Stakeholders participate in the foundation community by serving as a subject matter resource. 44 | 45 | #### USER 46 | A user is someone that uses our project. They contribute to the foundation projects by providing feedback to developers in the form of bug/error reports and feature suggestions. Users participate in the foundation community by helping other users in user support forums. 47 | 48 | #### CONTRIBUTOR 49 | A developer is a user who contributes to a project in the form of data, code, analysis, and documentation. They take extra steps to participate in a project, are active on the developer mailing list, participate in discussions, provide patches, documentation, suggestions, and criticism. Developers are also known as contributors. 50 | 51 | #### ASSOCIATE [ INVESTIGATOR? OTHER?] 52 | An associate is a contributor that was given management access to the project files ( including code repositories if applicable ) and has a signed Contributor License Agreement (CLA) on file. They have a foundation mail address. Not needing to depend on other people for the patches or small changes, they are actually making short-term decisions for the project. The PMC can (even tacitly) agree and approve it into permanency, or they can reject it. Remember that the PMC makes the decisions, not the individual associate. 53 | 54 | #### PMC MEMBER 55 | A PMC member is a stakeholder, contributor or associate that was elected due to merit for the evolution of the project and demonstration of commitment. They have write and owner-level access to the project files, an organization email address, the right to vote for the community-related decisions and the right to propose an active user for associateship. The PMC as a whole is the entity that controls the project, nobody else. In particular, the PMC must vote on any formal release of their project's products. 56 | 57 | #### PMC CHAIR 58 | The Chair of a Project Management Committee (PMC) is appointed by the Board from the PMC Members. The PMC as a whole is the entity that controls and leads the project. The Chair is the interface between the Board and the Project. PMC Chairs have specific duties. 59 | 60 | #### FOUNDATION MEMBER 61 | A foundation member is a person who was nominated by current members and elected due to merit for the evolution and progress of the foundation. Members care for the foundation itself. This is usually demonstrated through the roots of project-related and cross-project activities. Legally, a member is a "shareholder" of the foundation, one of the owners. They have the right to elect the board, to stand as a candidate for the board election and to propose a committer for membership. They also have the right to propose a new project for incubation (we'll see later what this means). The members coordinate their activities through their mailing list and through their annual meeting. We have a full listing of members. 62 | 63 | ### Calendar 64 | The board will meet no fewer than four times a year to consider the operations of the organization and evaluate new and continuing resolutions for PMCs. 65 | 66 | [Next: 7 - Advancement](7-advancement.md) 67 | 68 | 69 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /A-foundation-structure.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## Foundation Structure 2 | 3 | *Mostly lifted from the [Apache Foundation](http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html)* 4 | 5 | This page gives an overview of the proposed foundation structure: the difference between membership and committership, who decides what, how elections take place, how infrastructure is set up, what is the board, what is a Project Management Committee, and what's the philosophy behind the incubator. 6 | 7 | **Contents:** 8 | 9 | * What is the (ITM) Foundation? 10 | * A bit of history 11 | * Meritocracy 12 | * The Foundation structure 13 | * Roles 14 | * Project management 15 | * The Foundation Infrastructure 16 | * The Foundation Incubator 17 | * Other Foundation entities 18 | * Conclusions 19 | 20 | 21 | ## WHAT IS THE (ITM) FOUNDATION? 22 | 23 | The foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit public charity organization incorporated in the United States of America and was formed in 2016. The organization advocates, facilitates, and supports the modernization of the travel analysis industry to be responsive to stakeholder needs. 24 | 25 | This foundation was formed out of an on-going need identified by urban planning practitioners across the nation to focus on innovation rather than rebuilding the same tools over and over again. This foundation will serve as an independent legal entity to which community members can contribute code, funding, and other resources, secure in the knowledge that their contributions will be maintained for public benefit. 26 | 27 | To serve this mission, the foundation has established the following goals: 28 | 29 | * Serve as a clearinghouse of useful planning tools and methods and an incubator for development of innovative planning methods that can be applied in regions, cities, and neighborhoods across the country. 30 | 31 | * Provide critical infrastructure (legal, funding, hosting) to support the development of useful planning tools and methods. 32 | 33 | * Guide research toward useful outcomes for stakeholders. 34 | 35 | * Ensure tools developed under its guidance meet the most stringent software engineering and quality control standards. 36 | 37 | * Encourage the use of open data standards and interoperability across planning tools and related products. 38 | 39 | * Teach basic core competency in modern travel analysis skills, through workshops, online materials, and training. 40 | 41 | * Convene an initial conference to launch the first tranche of supported initiatives, possibly in cooperation with related efforts (e.g., TRB). 42 | 43 | ## A BIT OF HISTORY 44 | 45 | (to be added) 46 | 47 | ## FOUNDATION STRUCTURE 48 | 49 | No one model can possibly be the "One True Model" for all stakeholders. Thus, there is a need for multiple projects to advance in parallel. Those projects can grow in market share and popularity, and can focus on different aspects of modeling and data analysis in support of good planning outcomes. These projects need to be united by a common set of goals and a respected set of traditions in both etiquette and process. 50 | 51 | These separate communities are referred to as "projects" and while similar, each of them exhibit little differences that make them special. 52 | 53 | In order to reduce friction and allow for diversity to emerge, rather than forcing a monoculture from the top, the projects are designated the central decision-making organizations of the ITM foundation world. Each project is delegated authority over development of its software and data, and is given a great deal of latitude in designing its own technical charter and its own governing rules. 54 | 55 | The foundation is governed by the following entities: 56 | 57 | * Board of Directors (board) governs the foundation and is composed of members. 58 | 59 | * Project Management Committees (PMC) govern the projects, and they are composed of stakeholders, users, and members. 60 | 61 | * Various Officers of the corporation, appointed by the board, who set Foundation-wide policies in specific areas (legal, brand, fundraising, etc.) 62 | 63 | #### BOARD OF DIRECTORS (BOARD) 64 | The board is responsible for management and oversight of the business and affairs of the corporation in accordance with the foundation Bylaws. This includes management of the corporate assets (funds, intellectual property, trademarks, and support equipment) and allocation of corporate resources to projects. 65 | 66 | However, technical decision-making authority regarding the content and direction of the individual projects is assigned to each respective project management committee. 67 | 68 | The board is initially composed by (seven) individuals, elected between the members of the foundation. The bylaws don't specify the number of officers that the board should have. The board is elected every year. 69 | 70 | The board website has more information, the list of the current directors, schedule of meetings, and past minutes. 71 | 72 | #### PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMMITTEES (PMC) 73 | The Project Management Committees are established by resolution of the Board, to be responsible for the active management of one or more communities, which are also identified by resolution of the Board. 74 | 75 | Each PMC consists of at least one officer of the foundation, one chairperson, and may include one or more other members of the foundation. 76 | 77 | The chair of the PMC is appointed by the Board, has primary responsibility to the Board, and has the power to establish rules and procedures for the day to day management of the communities for which the PMC is responsible, including the composition of the PMC itself. 78 | 79 | The foundation Bylaws (section 6.3) define a PMC and the position of chair. The role of the PMC from a Foundation perspective is oversight. The main role of the PMC is not code and not coding - but to ensure that all legal issues are addressed, that procedure is followed, and that each and every release is the product of the community as a whole. That is key to our litigation protection mechanisms. 80 | 81 | Secondly the role of the PMC is to further the long term development and health of the community as a whole, and to ensure that balanced and wide scale peer review and collaboration does happen. Within the foundation we worry about any community which centers around a few individuals who are working virtually uncontested. We believe that this is detrimental to quality, stability, and robustness of both code and long term social structures. 82 | 83 | We firmly believe in hats. Your role at the foundation is one assigned to you personally, and is bestowed on you by your peers. It is not tied to your job or current employer or company. 84 | 85 | However those on the PMC are kept to a higher standard. As the PMC, and the chair in particular, are eyes and ears of the foundation Board, it is you that we rely on and need to trust to provide legal oversight. 86 | 87 | The board has the faculty to terminate a PMC at any time by resolution. 88 | 89 | The Apache Developer Information pages have many more details of how PMCs work. A complete list of all foundation projects is also available. 90 | 91 | #### OFFICERS 92 | The Officers of the foundation oversee the day-to-day affairs of the Foundation. The officers are elected by the Board of Directors. 93 | 94 | ## ROLES 95 | The meritocracy typically has various roles within each individual project community: 96 | 97 | * stakeholder 98 | * user 99 | * contributor 100 | * associate 101 | 102 | #### STAKEHOLDER 103 | A stakeholder is someone that has an interest in the results of the project in order to better accomplish their job. They contribute to the foundation projects by providing feedback to the PMC about the overall direction and needs of the project. Stakeholders participate in the foundation community by serving as a subject matter resource. 104 | 105 | #### USER 106 | A user is someone that uses our project. They contribute to the foundation projects by providing feedback to developers in the form of bug/error reports and feature suggestions. Users participate in the foundation community by helping other users in user support forums. 107 | 108 | #### CONTRIBUTOR 109 | A developer is a user who contributes to a project in the form of data, code, analysis, and documentation. They take extra steps to participate in a project, are active on the developer mailing list, participate in discussions, provide patches, documentation, suggestions, and criticism. Developers are also known as contributors. 110 | 111 | #### ASSOCIATE [ INVESTIGATOR? OTHER?] 112 | An associate is a contributor that was given management access to the project files ( including code repositories if applicable ) and has a signed Contributor License Agreement (CLA) on file. They have a foundation mail address. Not needing to depend on other people for the patches or small changes, they are actually making short-term decisions for the project. The PMC can (even tacitly) agree and approve it into permanency, or they can reject it. Remember that the PMC makes the decisions, not the individual associate. 113 | 114 | #### PMC MEMBER 115 | A PMC member is a stakeholder, contributor or associate that was elected due to merit for the evolution of the project and demonstration of commitment. They have write and owner-level access to the project files, an organization email address, the right to vote for the community-related decisions and the right to propose an active user for associateship. The PMC as a whole is the entity that controls the project, nobody else. In particular, the PMC must vote on any formal release of their project's products. 116 | 117 | #### PMC CHAIR 118 | The Chair of a Project Management Committee (PMC) is appointed by the Board from the PMC Members. The PMC as a whole is the entity that controls and leads the project. The Chair is the interface between the Board and the Project. PMC Chairs have specific duties. 119 | 120 | #### FOUNDATION MEMBER 121 | A foundation member is a person who was nominated by current members and elected due to merit for the evolution and progress of the foundation. Members care for the foundation itself. This is usually demonstrated through the roots of project-related and cross-project activities. Legally, a member is a "shareholder" of the foundation, one of the owners. They have the right to elect the board, to stand as a candidate for the board election and to propose a committer for membership. They also have the right to propose a new project for incubation (we'll see later what this means). The members coordinate their activities through their mailing list and through their annual meeting. We have a full listing of members. 122 | 123 | ## PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND COLLABORATION 124 | The foundation projects are managed using a collaborative, consensus-based process. We do not have a hierarchical structure. Rather, different groups of contributors have different rights and responsibilities in the organization. 125 | 126 | Since the appointed Project Management Committees have the power to create their own self-governing rules, there is no single vision on how PMCs should run a project and the communities they host. 127 | 128 | At the same time, while there are some differences, there are a number of similarities shared by all the projects and best practices that are suggested: 129 | 130 | #### COMMUNICATION 131 | Communication is done via emailing lists. These identify "virtual meeting rooms" where conversations happen asynchronously, which is a general requirement for groups that are so geographically distributed to cover all time zones (like it's normally the case for the various foundation communities). Virtual meeting rooms can be a GitHub issue, an online shared document, or something else. 132 | 133 | Some projects additionally use more synchronous messaging or video chats (for example, instant messaging, skype, or google hangout). 134 | 135 | In general, asynchronous communication is much more important because it allows archives to be created and it's more tolerant on the volunteer nature of the various communities. 136 | 137 | #### DOCUMENTATION 138 | Each project is responsible for its own project website. Further information to assist committers, developers, and PMCs is available at [Infrastructure]. 139 | 140 | #### DECISION MAKING 141 | Projects are normally auto-governing and driven by the people who volunteer for the job. This is sometimes referred to as "do-ocracy" -- power of those who do. This functions well for most cases. 142 | 143 | When coordination is required, decisions are taken with a lazy consensus approach: a few positive votes with no negative vote is enough to get going. 144 | 145 | Voting is done with numbers: 146 | 147 | +1 -- a positive vote 148 | 149 | 0 -- abstain, have no opinion 150 | 151 | -1 -- a negative vote 152 | 153 | The rules require that a negative vote includes an alternative proposal or a detailed explanation of the reasons for the negative vote. 154 | 155 | The community then tries to gather consensus on an alternative proposal that resolves the issue. In the great majority of cases, the concerns leading to the negative vote can be addressed. 156 | 157 | This process is called "consensus gathering" and we consider it a very important indication of a healthy community. 158 | 159 | Specific cases have some more detailed voting rules. 160 | 161 | #### PHILOSOPHY 162 | While there is not an official list, these six principles have been cited as the core beliefs of philosophy behind the foundation, which is normally referred to as "The Apache Way" and have been adapted for this Foundation: 163 | 164 | * respectful, honest, technical-based interaction 165 | 166 | * driven by usefulness 167 | 168 | * user-friendly packaging and licensing 169 | 170 | * consistently high quality work products 171 | 172 | * faithful implementation of standards 173 | 174 | * lawfulness as a mandatory feature 175 | 176 | All of the foundation projects share these principles. Similarly, foundation projects are required to govern themselves independently of undue commercial influence. 177 | 178 | #### OPERATION 179 | All projects are composed of volunteers and nobody (not even members or officers) are paid directly by the foundation for their job. There are many examples of committers that are paid to work on the projects, but never by the foundation themselves, but rather by companies or institutions that use the software and want to enhance it or maintain it. 180 | 181 | Note that the foundation does contract out various services, including accounting, Press and Media relations, and infrastructure system administration. 182 | 183 | #### INDIVIDUALS COMPOSE THE FOUNDATION 184 | All of the foundation including the board, the other officers, the committers, and the members, are participating as individuals. That is one strength of the foundation: affiliations do not cloud the personal contributions. 185 | 186 | Unless they specifically state otherwise, whatever they post on any mailing list is done as themselves. It is the individual point-of-view, wearing their personal hat and not as a mouthpiece for whatever company happens to be signing their paychecks right now, and not even as a director of the foundation. 187 | 188 | All of those foundation people implicitly have multiple hats, especially the Board, the other officers, and the PMC chairs. They sometimes need to talk about a matter of policy, so to avoid appearing to be expressing a personal opinion, they will state that they are talking in their special capacity. However, most of the time this is not necessary, personal opinions work well. 189 | 190 | Some people declare their hats by using a special footer to their email, others enclose their statements in special quotation marks, others use their apache.org email address when otherwise they would use their personal one. This latter method is not reliable, as many people use their apache.org address all of the time. 191 | 192 | #### BALANCING CONFIDENTIALITY AND PUBLIC DISCUSSION 193 | We endeavor to conduct as much discussion in public as possible. This encourages openness, provides a public record, and stimulates the broader community. 194 | 195 | However sometimes internal private mail lists are necessary. You must never divulge such information in public without the express permission of the list. Also never copy an email between private and public lists (no Cc). Such an event would go beyond the normal need for email ettiquette and be a serious breach of confidence. It could have serious ramifications, cause unnecessary confusion and ill-informed discussion. 196 | 197 | Private lists are typically only used for matters pertaining to people as individuals (like voting in new committers), and legal matters that require confidentiality. 198 | 199 | ## THE FOUNDATION INCUBATOR 200 | In order for new projects to be created, the foundation created a project called Incubator which is responsible to help new efforts to join the foundation. 201 | 202 | Since the meritocratic rules operate across the foundation from bottom to top, it is vital for the long-term stability of such a form of government, that the initial set of committers has to know very well the dynamics of such a system, as well as share the same philosophical attitude toward collaboration and openness that the foundation expects from its projects. 203 | 204 | The incubator is responsible for: 205 | 206 | * filtering the proposals about the creation of a new project or sub-project 207 | 208 | * help the creation of the project and the infrastructure that it needs to operate 209 | 210 | * supervise and mentor the incubated community in order for them to reach an open meritocratic environment 211 | 212 | * evaluate the maturity of the incubated project, either promoting it to official project/ sub-project status or by retiring it, in case of failure. 213 | 214 | It must be noted that the incubator (just like the board) does not perform filtering on the basis of technical issues. This is because the foundation respects and suggests variety of technical approaches. It doesn't fear innovation or even internal confrontation between projects which overlap in functionality. 215 | 216 | The incubator filters projects on the basis of the likeliness of them becoming successful meritocratic communities. Example requirements for incubation are: 217 | 218 | * a working codebase -- over the years and after several failures, the foundation came to understand that without an initial working codebase, it is generally hard to bootstrap a community. This is because merit is not well recognized by developers without a working codebase. Also, the friction that is developed during the initial design stage is likely to fragment the community. 219 | 220 | * the intention to donate copyright of the software and the intellectual property that it may contain to the foundation -- this allows the foundation to obtain an irrevocable and permanent right to redistribute and work on the code, without fearing lock-in for itself or for its users. 221 | 222 | * a sponsoring foundation member or officer -- this person will act as the main mentor, giving directions to the project, helping out in the day-to-day details and keeping contact with the incubator PMC. 223 | 224 | The incubation period normally serves to estimate whether or not: 225 | 226 | * the project is able to increase the diversity of its committer base and to play with the meritocratic rules of the foundation. 227 | 228 | It might seem rather easy to achieve, but it must be remembered that in a volunteer and highly selective environment, attracting new committers is not automatic. 229 | 230 | Diversity of associateship is important for two main reasons: 231 | 232 | * it gives long term stability to the project development: in fact, with all the developers affiliated to the same entity, the chance of seeing all of them moving away from the project at the same time is much greater than with a community of individuals affiliated to unrelated entities. 233 | 234 | * it gives a greater variety of technical visions: something that guarantees a better adherence to environment and user's needs, thus a higher change of finding real-life use of the software. 235 | 236 | ## OTHER FOUNDATION ENTITIES 237 | Along with the Incubator, the foundation has several other cross-foundation projects. 238 | 239 | 240 | ## IN REVIEW... 241 | The Apache Foundation represents one of the best examples of an open organization that has found balance between structure and flexibility. We hope to emulate their success here. We strive to find balance between openness and economical feasibility. We hope to continue to provide inspiration for businesses, governments, education, and for other foundations. 242 | 243 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------