APPENDIX A

Literature Review

Overview

The first step in creating this roadmap was to review the existing KM research literature to:

• understand current KM practice in transportation agencies,
• identify barriers that are constraining future progress,
• summarize the existing body of research related to KM in transportation, and
• identify topics covered in general KM research that might provide fruitful avenues for applications within transportation.

The research team reviewed over 92 resources, 52 of which were related to KM in transportation. The remaining 40 addressed KM in general or in other industries. The results of the literature review are provided below.

Background

KM at Transportation Agencies

Early examples of KM at DOTs were in place in the early- to mid-2000s. The Virginia DOT (VDOT) created a KM division in 2003, motivated by two significant reductions in force. Around the same time, Pennsylvania DOT (PennDOT) established several CoPs. In 2004, Texas DOT (TxDOT) conducted a pilot program for capturing knowledge about rigid pavement forensics. Since then, interest in KM has been growing within transportation agencies. While there are few formally established and resourced KM programs, several DOTs have implemented KM techniques including CoPs, AARs, mentoring programs, and central information repositories.

Transportation KM Research

There are established committees within the TRB and the AASHTO that are working to advance KM in transportation. In 2007, the AASHTO RAC created a TKN task force to focus on information and knowledge sharing within the transportation community. TRB established a KM Task Force in 2011, “to advance and disseminate practices that facilitate improved knowledge sharing and retention throughout the transportation industry and government agencies.” In 2020, this Task Force was merged with the TRB LIST Committee to form a new IKM Committee. In 2016, AASHTO created a CKM to “address the processes and technologies that facilitate interactions between stakeholders, as well as the strategies and practices necessary for an organization to share knowledge between individuals and across groups to support current work and innovation.” The CKM met for the first time in May 2018. The TRB IKM’s Research Task

Force and the AASHTO CKM’s Research Subcommittee work together to identify KM RNs and develop and advance research projects.

Methodology

Transportation-Related KM Literature Review

Completed, active, and anticipated/under-development research on KM in transportation was identified using the following process:

• The TRB Committee on IKM and the AASHTO CKM maintain research tracking lists that identify completed, active, and under-development research related to KM in transportation. This tracking sheet was used as a starting point for the literature review.
• Supplemental resources were identified through a review of the AASHTO CKM web resource: “The History of Knowledge Management in Transportation.”
• The Transportation Research International Documentation (TRID) database was searched using key words “Knowledge Management” and “Knowledge” to identify other relevant projects. The review included all relevant CRP projects and current CRP and DOT/University research projects. Other relevant research resources since 2019 were also included.
• Used TRID to identify CRP projects that cover workforce topics related to KM (e.g., succession management, workforce development to align skills with emerging needs, etc.).
• Reviewed recent meeting notes from the AASHTO CKM to identify research projects under development.
• Added other relevant items that members of the research team were aware of through work on prior KM projects.

General KM Literature Review

Given the breadth of general KM research, the focus of this portion of the literature review was on identifying resources that surveyed and summarized existing KM research or created KM research agendas based on the literature and stakeholder engagement. The general literature review was used to identify frameworks for organizing KM RNs and identify KM research topics and approaches with applicability to transportation. General KM literature was identified through searches of the MIT library system using key words “knowledge management” + “research agenda,” “synthesis,” “survey,” and “research roadmap.” Initial results were screened for relevance. A supplemental search was conducted to identify a few resources covering the intersection of KM and AI.

Framework Development

Based on a review of the identified resources – both transportation-related KM and general KM, an initial set of research categories was created to provide a preliminary framework for summarizing research gaps and needs:

1. KM Basics – definition, elements, principles
2. KM Implementation – Within Transportation Agencies
3. KM Implementation – Across Transportation Agencies
4. KM Value/Metrics for Transportation Agencies
5. KM Techniques for Knowledge Capture, Sharing, Transfer
6. Domain-Specific KM Applications

1. KM/Learning Culture in Transportation Agencies
2. Transportation Knowledge Organization and Representation
3. Transportation Data & Information Management
4. Strategic Transportation Workforce Development/Training/Succession Management

This framework was used to categorize the transportation-related resources included in the literature review.

Summary of Transportation-Related KM Literature

Resources Identified

Table A-1 presents the transportation-related KM references that were identified. It is organized into three sections: completed research, currently active research, and research that is under development or proposed. This table shows the year (or status for active and under-development projects), the link and the categories assigned.

Table A-1. Transportation-related KM references.

Table A-2 summarizes coverage of the different categories for completed, active, and pending/under-development research. The categories assigned with the highest frequency were KM Implementation within transportation agencies and KM techniques for knowledge capture, sharing and transfer.

Key Findings

Completed Research

There is a rich body of completed research related to KM in transportation. We identified 46 references for completed projects, 23 of which were CRP projects. The primary emphasis of CRP KM research has been on providing guidance on implementation of KM within transportation agencies. General KM guides for state DOTs, transit agencies and airports have been developed and a KM guide for airports is nearing completion. A synthesis project was conducted in 2007, and a domestic scan was conducted in 2014 to document the state of the

Table A-2. Coverage of different KM research categories.

practice. Other CRP projects have focused on workforce management topics, management of data and information within transportation agencies and information and knowledge sharing across the transportation community. Several past projects have provided some coverage of KM value/metrics and learning culture as part of a broader scope.

State DOTs and university partners in California, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Washington State and Wisconsin have produced agency-specific KM investigations, guidance, and pilots.

Several references were identified that covered domain-specific applications of KM – including a TxDOT pavement forensics knowledge management system; Minnesota DOT’s (MnDOT) knowledge books for Concrete Pavement Rehabilitation and Repair, Bituminous Knowledge and Structural Steel Fabrication; and ontology development related to highway construction inspection, concrete bridge rehabilitation and integrated highway planning. One article (Chen, 2022) was notable for its use of semi-structured interviews with transportation software designers to explore how “real world” organizational factors impacted the effectiveness of KM practices.

Active Research

There were eight active CRP projects and one active University/DOT project related to KM as of June 2024:

• One active CRP project is developing in-depth KM implementation guidance (NCHRP 23-17). This project is scoped to provide more in-depth coverage of KM value assessment and KM culture topics than prior CRP efforts.
• An additional four active CRP projects are looking at various KM-related topic areas: development and use of transportation ontologies (NCHRP 23-27), strategies to further application of research results (NCHRP 23-30), workforce adaptation to new technologies [NCHRP 20-102(20)], and advancing the art and science of decision making [NCHRP 20-24(141)].
• Three CRP projects were initiated in early 2024. NCHRP Project 20-44(45), “Supporting State DOT Adoption of Knowledge Management Practices,” is an implementation project for the KM Guide and the KM Domestic Scan. NCHRP Project 23-31A, “Strategies to Foster the Implementation of Knowledge Management,” is a project to document and share transportation agency KM activities that have taken place over the past two decades. NCHRP 23-36 is a project to create a knowledge capture toolkit.
• The DOT/University research projects is aimed at furthering KM implementation at Tennessee DOT.

Summary of General KM Literature

The general KM literature review included over 40 resources, selected for their breadth of coverage of prior KM research. The literature provided a number of useful organizational frameworks for KM topics. There were also several key themes which in general, confirmed rather than added to the body of transportation-specific KM literature. Frameworks and key themes are shown below.

KM Frameworks

1. Ragab and Arisha (2013)
   • Foundations – definitions, types, and characteristics of knowledge
   • Knowledge Management Systems/Frameworks/Implementation Approaches
   • IT/Technology solutions (including AI)
   • Managerial and social issues (including culture)
   • Measurement/Value (including Intellectual Capital)
2. Bedford (2012) – Ten Facets of Knowledge Management
   • Knowledge Technologies
   • Knowledge Asset Management
   • Knowledge Assessment and Evaluation
   • Intellectual Capital Management
   • Communities and Collaboration
   • Culture and Communication
   • Knowledge Operations
   • Organizational Learning
   • Knowledge Leadership and Strategy
   • Knowledge Architecture
3. Handzic (2015)
   • KM Contexts (including environments, tasks, and doers)
   • KM Drivers (including the knowledge economy, worker, and employer motivations)
   • KM Enablers (including social/cultural and technological)
   • Learning Processes (including knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, knowledge retention, and knowledge discovery)
   • Knowledge Stocks (including explicit and tacit knowledge)
   • KM Outcomes (including innovation, efficiency, and effectiveness)
4. Heisig (2009)
   • Business focus: the context of application and generation of specific knowledge, to be beneficial from a management perspective and the day-to-day perspective
   • Knowledge focus: the systemic handling of knowledge, activities “create,” “store,” “share,” and “apply”
   • Enabler focus: key enablers are “culture,” “organization and roles,” “strategy and leadership,” “skills and motivation,” “controlling and management,” and “information technology”
5. Heisig (2014)
   • Business outcomes
   • Human and social factors
   • Technology
   • KM processes, capabilities, and strategy
   • Organizational environment
   • Knowledge society and economy

1. Lee and Chen (2012)
   • Organizational perspectives and models (e.g., intellectual capital, innovation, organizational memory, organizational intelligence)
   • KM processes (re-use, integration, sharing, transfer, etc.)
   • KM implementation (KM diagnostics, KM challenges, KM models, KM systems)
   • Technology supporting KM (semantic web, computer-based reasoning, multi-agent systems)
   • Analytical methods and structures supporting KM (ontology, text mining, data mining, knowledge structures)
2. Fteimi and Lehner (2016)
   • Knowledge, Information and Data
   • Organization (context, business characteristics)
   • Management and leadership (style, practices, processes, roles)
   • Information and communication technology (collaboration technology, information systems)
   • Intellectual capital, learning & memory (IC, IP, Learning, Training, Memory & Cognition)
   • Education and Research
3. Truch et al. (2000)
   • Justification (Why)
   • Implementation (How)
   • Scoping (What)
   • Evaluation (Results)

Key Themes

• The broad, fragmented interdisciplinary nature of KM, which leads to challenges in understanding and communicating what it is.
• The importance of tailoring KM to an organization’s specific goals and culture – there is no single “one size fits all” solution.
• The importance of integrating KM within an organization’s existing practices.
• The importance of addressing the people and social aspects of KM – and cautions against an overemphasis on technology and information management aspects of KM.
• The need to better understand how to facilitate knowledge reuse – emphasizing how knowledge is actually applied as opposed to shared or delivered.
• The need to better understand the role of KM for fostering creativity and innovation.
• The need to better assess KM’s impact on practice – including its role in fostering creativity and innovation and its role in decision making and organizational value creation.
• The need to better understand public-sector applications of organizational learning.
• The need for research on KM and current issues of concern such as resilience.
• The need to better define how KM complements or supports AI.