Transportation and land-use planning often requires data from multiple different sources to inform decision making. Data sources are often managed by different agencies, resulting in a multitude of challenges related to data sharing and consistency.

The goals of this collaborative effort were to describe data needs from the perspective of planners and to identify opportunities for shared data resources. Here, the Office of Federal Lands Highway (FLH) and USGS collaboratively examined (1) use and availability of spatial data for transportation planning and (2) a possible mechanism to use more shared and consistent data in a common planning environment. 

Programmers creating a secure web-based data-sharing platform (with data-viewing, -analysis and -download functions) can use the information presented here to organize data and user interfaces. This integrated perspective can help FLH and FLMA partners develop transportation networks that better serve the needs of people in local communities and across States and the Nation.