1. March
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Transportation for the Nation
Case Study – Ohio:
Collaboration on Street Centerline in Ohio
TFTN Strategic Plan Case Study

2. Overview
The Location Based Response System (LBRS) is a partnership between state
and local governments to develop highly-accurate (+/- 1M), field-verified
street centerlines and address point locations for the entire state. The state has
developed a set of standards and provides financial incentive to counties that
participate. The state contracts with the county through a Memorandum of
Agreement (MOA) to provide funds upon successful completion of a data
collection and maintenance system meeting LBRS requirements.
Project Background
A MOA was drafted, and its language requires that the county establish a GIS
Management Team to guide the development of the county’s LBRS project.
This also means that the county owns the development process and is
responsible for QC and verification. Each county is responsible for ongoing
maintenance with annual updates to the State; however, their specifications
are incorporated into the process in an as-needed basis. The state held
outreach meetings with the vendor community regarding requirements, and
maintains open communication during the development process to ensure a
successful outcome. The state requires participation of county 911
coordinators, engineers, commissioners, auditors, etc., and the State GIS team
is required to have a stake in the process.
A key component that drove activity was to fully engage 911 coordinators at
the county level with their need for precise locations. Data was accepted from
64 counties, 10 of which were actively participating—74 out of 88 counties.
They understand local management and business processes well enough to
get certified road mileage, which is how they re-distribute their mileage.
Funding is needed to match their standards.
There are many real-world and high-profile use cases in which LBRS helped
save lives. An example is from Mercer County, Ohio; where a woman trapped
in her car was able to call 911, and the dispatcher pinpointed her position
using the LBRS: http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/woman-rescued-from-
submerged-car. Examples like this one gained exposure and backing from
state legislators, who inevitably wrote strong letters of support and helped to
solidify the effort.
Lessons Learned and Challenges
• A standardized maintenance application for county use must be provided,
as well as financial support to counties for ongoing maintenance. This is
important for total county support, especially in the south eastern part of the

3. state. Digital submission of the transportation network for the annual
certification process must also be required to encourage all counties to
participate; currently, 74 of the state’s 88 counties are participating.
• A lack of resources—funding, personnel, software, and training—at the local
level to develop and/or maintain data is problematic. Identification of new
funding sources and partners must continue to overcome this. Once a county
resource becomes familiar with the state requirements for LBRS, they often
move to another position with another firm, because at that point they are
considered a highly skilled asset to any company, primarily the vendors.
• A lack of resources at the state level—funding and personnel—requires
delaying projects and limiting the number of projects that can be completed
in a given year. Limited ability to meet LBRS requirements within the vendor
community has been a matter of learning by experience of which firms are
capable of meeting the standards, and working directly with them to ensure
success. Counties are still not sharing data with other counties, which forces
some counties to go to the state to get data from neighboring counties.
• Contractor support for LBRS ranged from CAMA specialists like WTH
Technology, Inc., to Woolpert and MRT who had people on the ground
verifying data.
Conclusions
The Ohio LBRS program is a result of the successful culmination of many
organizations working together to provide accurate centerline data
throughout the state for which emergency response organizations and state
geospatial programs can use as needed. There are several real world success
stories related to the program, which further demonstrates the need and
viability for accurate and interoperable services such as this.
LBRS Funding resources include eSecureOhio LBRS Capital Funds, ODOT
Special Project Funds, ODOT 408 Safety Funds, CEAO Safety Funds, the NTIA
Broadband Grant, Cellular 911 Service Fees, and USGS Grants.
Sources: Stuart R. Davis—State CIO/Assistant Director, Ohio Department of
Administrative Services, Office of Information Technology; David Blackstone—
GIS Manager, Office of Technical Services; Jeff Smith—Spatial Data Framework
Manager, Ohio Office of Information Technology; and Raechel DeRussy—
Executive Assistant, Ohio Department of Administrative Services Office of
Information Technology