History
The Strategic Research and Technology Working Group
The Strategic Research and Technology (SR&T) Working Group was established as part of the Australian Transport Council's (ATC) . National Transport Policy Framework in 2008.The purpose of the group was to enhance the delivery of evidence-based policy, and to support improvements to transportation efficiency and effectiveness through a co-ordinated national approach to strategic transportation research, technology and data collection and dissemination.
The SRTWG was convened by the Tasmanian Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources and had representatives from all Commonwealth, State and Territory transport agencies as well as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and the National Transport Commission (NTC).
Through analysis of transportation data needs and data issues, the SRTWG found that information about current data collections; including the scope, applicability and data quality, needed to be improved to ensure that transport data is used most effectively and efficiently to inform policy.
Through a series of consultation sessions and a national workshop with transportation data stakeholders, the SRTWG identified national strategic transportation data needs and priorities. This work informed the development of the Transportation Data Action Plan, endorsed by the ATC, to improve data quality and visibility.
Metadata Visibility Website
The national workshop concluded that making data more visible and available was the highest priority. As a result, the SRTWG set out to develop a website to make metadata for strategically important data sets more visible. A pilot website was developed in collaboration with the ABS and was launched to key stakeholders in September 2009.
Australian Transportation Data Action Network
Following the success of the SRTWG, the ATC requested that the group
propose new governance arrangements to allow the work to continue.
In September 2009, these arrangements were implemented with the
establishment of the
Australian Transportation
Data Action Network (ATDAN). ATDAN is an advisory and action group
that is chaired by the ABS, and is responsible for providing
leadership in transportation data. In collaboration with the ABS,
ATDAN is responsible for the development and management of the full
production metadata website.
