Background
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (CapMetro) is a public agency responsible for providing mass transit service in the Austin metropolitan area. It currently operates across 500 square miles and operates fixed-route bus and rail services, paratransit (in a 3/4-mile corridor of fixed-route bus lines), and rideshare.
Challenge
Like many organizations, CapMetro found that their business intelligence data was siloed across different reports and tools, requiring analysts to dedicate significant amounts of time to aggregating data. Some of these reports would run two months behind, meaning that business data was unavailable for real-time decision making.
Additionally, as a publicly-funded organization, CapMetro has a strong commitment to transparency. Embarking on an analytics initiative was necessary not only for their internal strategy and operations, but also for their public reporting.
In 2019, the CapMetro board of directors approved a data warehouse and business intelligence initiative to construct a scalable solution to analyze, extract, transform, load, and offer business intelligence functionality to end users using a variety of internally and externally sourced data.
Solution
CapMetro used a framework in scoping their project that required them to engage two separate consulting firms - one one to complete the discovery and roadmap phase and a second to complete the implementation. Because Keyrus was selected for the first phase of the project, we were ineligible to work on the second phase. However, due to the successful completion of phase one, we served as a strategic partner in the selection of the firm for phase two and will be overseeing the project implementation.
In the first phase of this initiative, we partnered with CapMetro to deliver business and information discovery reports, maturity assessment, recommended system architecture, and tool stack.
We started with a needs assessment that included an evaluation of business and technical requirements while ensuring alignment with larger strategic goals. We also conducted a business intelligence (BI) maturity assessment through which we identified gaps not only in technology but also in processes, training, and governance.
Because of the large scope of the project, we worked with CapMetro to divide the project into smaller components and prioritize requirements based on the level of effort required and value to the organization.
Results
The result of these exercises was a detailed implementation roadmap that informed their RFP for the implementation phase of the project.
Using the information gathered during the discovery phase, Keyrus recommended tools including ETL and ELT packages, data warehousing solutions, web platforms, and tools for master data management, data cataloging, and lineage.
Keyrus delivered all components of the project on time and within budget. Because of the success of phase one of this project, we will continue to serve as a strategic partner for CapMetro as we oversee the implementation phase.