CHAPTER 4

Policies

4.1 Elements to Address Within Airport Policies

“Data governance policy is a collection of principles, frameworks, programs, roles, and responsibilities that help manage data collection, storage, access, usage, quality, and archival of data assets in its entire life cycle” (Atlan 2022). Airports should consider documenting data governance and data maintenance policies and procedures as a part of their mandatory internal policies. Throughout the research performed for this guide, an airport with a fully developed data governance policy was not found. However, components of how to maintain, update, store, and distribute data have been seen throughout many case studies conducted as part of this research. The findings show that more often many airports employ these procedures as departmental guidelines rather than corporate policy maintained at an enterprise level.

4.2 Suggested Language for Contracts and Agreements

It is suggested that all airports adopt a policy to require specific language in each contract regarding data coming from an owner, contractor, or consultant. Discussions with numerous airports throughout this research indicated that airports are not getting complete and compliant design or as-built files and, in many instances, airports receive a design file stamped as as-built, when many field modifications occurred that would not have been captured in the design plans. To overcome these challenges, it is suggested that airports deploy an independent reviewer, who may or may not be a part of the contracting firm but can independently obtain and provide as-built data. Allowing the same individuals involved in the construction process to perform their own as-builts sets up the possibility that they could modify as-built data to ensure a required standard of the contract is met. This independent screening is no different than in an internal airport quality control process where quality control is completed by someone independent of the overall product development.

When distributing information within a contract or an agreement, it is imperative that an airport engage their legal and/or purchasing department(s). Each airport’s legal department can indicate the elements of a contract or agreement that are enforceable or non-enforceable. Some collaborators may prefer alternatives to the sample language provided within this guide and may want to modify it. An airport can modify the sample contract langue at their sole discretion; however, it is suggested that, at a minimum, a contract define the following items:

• Standards compliance;
• Any level of attribution required;
• Data accuracy and submittal compliance; and
• The datum/projection, units, and absolute accuracy for the data—including any applicable coordinate systems or control marks that should be utilized.

In lieu of providing each of these items within every contract or agreement, an airport can establish a requirement to comply with each of these items as a part of the airport’s geospatial data governance policy or other required data standard. However, airport contract agreements must make a specific reference to the airport’s data governance policy or standard and document all discussions of as-built data expectations, requirements, and delivery. Receiving accurate and complete data is crucial to future data updates and ensuring an established geospatial data policy is followed. It is best practice to both bring these requirements to the attention of the airport project manager, purchasing agent, and consultant manager, and to document the expectation that contract enforcement items shall be fully satisfied prior to project closeout.

4.3 Sample Policies

In addition to contractor or consultant compliance with contracts and agreements referenced previously, a geospatial data governance policy should be useable by internal and external collaborators. An airport should develop a geospatial data governance policy that is concise, clearly defines its scope and purpose, and ensures users comprehend what the policy covers and excludes. In addition to the contract or agreement requirements language, additional policy topics could include a set of simple yet comprehensive geospatial data governance policies. A sample geospatial data governance policy is provided in Appendix B.

The data collection performed for this effort revealed that not all airports adopt formal policies that govern their geospatial data program. For those that do, common policies range from data security and usage to more detailed technical policies. The policies further discussed in this chapter are crucial to reaching a sustainable “flow state” for governance actions and data updates.

Executive Support and Governance Policy

This policy would formally state the need for and formation of a geospatial data program. This should be the first policy from an organization and would define the resources the organization will commit to support the overall geospatial program as well as which groups have what responsibilities. A formal policy “chartering” the program and high-level goals are fundamental to obtaining buy-in by all departments that will help support and utilize geospatial data. The governance policy can also set expectations for data update frequencies and purposes, establish long-term program objectives, and create a multiyear roadmap and other fundamental policies.

The executive support and governance policy can also help define organizational ownership and alignment. The policy could state what parts of the organization shall be primarily responsible for overseeing the geospatial data program by establishing formal collaborators and data steward roles. A clear policy statement will help the entire organization understand and execute the stated program objectives and fulfill newly defined staff responsibilities. An effective geospatial data governance program is a team effort, with only a few data creators editing geospatial features and attribute data. Staff can be assigned an ownership role for instituting data changes and approving data, even though they may not participate in technical data maintenance efforts. The policy can help define those data consumers and producers without permission to make technical edits. In addition, defining who owns what data and the data update frequency will help highlight what data is more critical than other data. A formal policy statement can establish data priorities so limited resources can be expended on some critical data that must remain more current than other information, while permitting other data to remain out of date longer.

Data Standards Compliance, Data Accuracy, and Integrity Policy

A policy that adopts a particular data standard is required to define what data is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Though an accuracy requirement can be included in a data standard, the practice is not universal since some standards are used to translate data from one format to another (i.e., BIM to GIS). Most data standards explain acceptable data attribution in detail and can instruct how to properly survey a feature to obtain proper spatial accuracy requirements. The data standard is the baseline for comparison to ensure proper geometric construction, spatial accuracy (if defined), and all attribute fields (both required and optional) are populated with correct data and ranges. As the data dictionary, standards typically define what attribute values are appropriate for any given data field to ensure data consistency to facilitate filtering and grouping.

The standards compliance section of a geospatial data governance contract or agreement should reference any enforceable airport standards. This requirement establishes a policy to require compliance with specific data standards. Applicable data standards could include compliance with CAD, GIS, or BIM standards and could reference other applicable FAA standards—especially safety-critical data required for upload to the FAA’s Airport Data Information Portal (ADIP) system. An example of this type of policy would be stating that compliance with the FAA Airport’s GIS data standard is mandatory. On September 22, 2022, the FAA released an Updated Guidance for AGIS Survey Program document. This policy helps to clarify when AGIS data is required for both safety-critical and non–safety-critical data to the FAA.

A policy stating the expected accuracy for data updates will drive further decisions, like how often entire data layers should be updated versus piecemeal updates, and the minimum accuracy standard required for new data collection. In addition, defining a data standard for data deliveries will ensure new data can be effectively combined with existing data without diluting its accuracy. Formally adopted data standards, discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5, will serve as a foundation for all future data deliveries. Instances when data is not delivered according to the adopted standard can serve as an effective performance measure for the data creator (contractor or other organization) until the data issues are properly resolved.

Data integrity is the overall accuracy, completeness, and consistency of data, and is one of the main investments in a geospatial data program. As data is developed from basic features, it must be attributed with other information and potentially transformed into other formats through a series of processes that makes it possible to organize and establish relationships between data. Data integrity across these processes will help ensure accuracy throughout the data processing. Poor data integrity can lead to inconsistent data and a lack of user trust in the data itself.

Data Access, Usage, Security, Integration, and Sharing

The purpose of maintaining and disseminating accurate geospatial data is to help decision makers and geospatial data collaborators make better and more informed decisions. Therefore, it is in the airport’s best interest to provide a wide array of users within—and sometimes outside an organization—access to common data sets. A defined data access policy will in turn guide other data security decisions such as what data should be restricted to a small audience and what data is so sensitive it should be tightly restricted. A data access policy can also lay a foundation for data sharing between different organizations or define regulatory requirements for data access and data sharing.

The policy can also define proper use of the airport data and the approved versus unapproved purposes for which the geospatial data can be used. For instance, the data usage policy can clarify when it is appropriate to share data with private entities and if there is a fee for providing such data. Defining inappropriate data usage policies can ensure data is used only for its intended