Data & Analytics

Ridership trends emerge from transit data archive

The nation’s local transit data now sits in a centralized archive, giving officials an understanding of how communities use transportation systems.

  • By Kaitlyn Levinson

Report: Governments behind private sector in customer, employee experience

Governments have improved their digital transformation efforts, but much work remains.

  • By Kirsten Errick

The cost of wildfires is rising. But by how much?

States are struggling to budget resources for wildfire management given inadequate tracking and reporting of costs.

  • By Jessie Blaeser , Grist

Data to help bridge the racial wealth divide

The Black Wealth Data Center aims to provide easy access to race-based data and empower evidence-driven decision-making.

  • By Kaitlyn Levinson

Opioid prediction model gives state life-saving prep time

West Virginia health officials can reliably forecast drug overdoses based on data from neighboring areas.

  • By Kaitlyn Levinson

A new use for dating apps: Chasing STIs

As contact tracing for sexually transmitted infections becomes more difficult, some public health officials are resorting to dating apps to inform users that they may have been exposed to an STI.

  • By Darius Tahir, Kaiser Health News

The next era of data-driven local government

Cities and other localities are entering a new phase with how they incorporate data into decision-making.

  • By Alisha Powell Gillis

Online access, data improvements essential for 2030 census, cities say

In a letter to the Census Bureau, the National League of Cities detailed common hurdles local governments faced during the 2020 census — and suggestions for improvements.

  • By Kaitlyn Levinson

Do’s and don’ts of data de-identification

Data use standards and purpose-built software can help agencies protect individuals’ privacy while allowing for meaningful statistical analysis, NIST says.

  • By Kaitlyn Levinson

What the world would lose with the demise of Twitter: valuable eyewitness accounts and raw data on human behavior, as well as a habitat for trolls

Twitter provides open source intelligence, insights into human behavior and a way for people to connect with government.

  • By Anjana Susarla, The Conversation

Urban climate lab makes holistic appraisal of resilience

The Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative will integrate environmental, health and community response data to drive potential climate solutions that support equity and resilience.

  • By Kaitlyn Levinson

How data sharing revs up mobility decisions

What’s the expected usage for rural EV charging stations? A new data platform lets transportation managers predict energy savings for mobility programs from shared program data.

  • By Susan Miller

How to reduce citizen harm from automated decision systems

For agencies that use automated systems to inform decisions about schools, social services and medical treatment, it’s imperative that they’re using technology that protects data.

  • By Stephanie Kanowitz

These hyperlocal weather networks can help states face climate threats

Thirty-eight states are building weather monitoring networks to collect localized data that helps identify weather extremes, preparing local leaders' responses to such events.

  • By Alex Brown, Stateline
Featured eBooks

How data solves hospital system’s pain points

NYC Health and Hospitals’ data office focuses not on providing capabilities to customers, but on delivering services.

  • By Stephanie Kanowitz

Climate projections everyone can understand

The Climate Risk and Resilience portal gives emergency managers nontechnical climate datasets and high-resolution, forward-looking climate insights.

  • By Kaitlyn Levinson

State serves up map for tackling food insecurity

An interactive food resource map covers all 46 counties in South Carolina and features profiles for more than 900 food pantries and resources.

  • By Kaitlyn Levinson

How GIS fortifies election information

Geographic information systems can help election directors speed up voter information verification processes and expand data collection capacities.

  • By Kaitlyn Levinson

Failure is inevitable, so why not learn from it?

Agencies that can “fail forward” learn to identify, analyze and communicate about how projects fall flat and work toward innovative solutions to complex government problems.

  • By Stephanie Kanowitz

The basic questions bedeviling how states manage data

States have tons of data. But much of it is redundant and it’s sometimes hard to know where it is stored, who can access it and how it can be used.

  • By Bill Lucia

Energy data to power state’s clean-energy economy

Integrating energy system and customer data, the Integrated Energy Data Resource will spur development of distributed energy resources, innovative use cases and utility operational efficiencies.

  • By Kaitlyn Levinson