But how best to make them happen when every government’s journey, and every department, agency, division, city and county’s path is different? Longtime tech leader Ahsan Baig, chief information officer for AC Transit, considered the challenge of “Sustainable Modernization” with Don Ingle, industry executive adviser at SAP, and Stephen Pieraldi, distinguished technologist at HP, at this year’s Bay Area Digital Government Summit, presented by Government Technology magazine.*
Baig’s organization, he said during a panel discussion, covers 365 square miles and served 200,000 riders a day and more than 55 million a year before COVID-19. Roughly 40 percent of the agency’s ridership doesn’t own a car, so its service is crucial. He offered takeaways on making modernization happen and his thoughts for the private sector on connecting with government:
- A strategy, a plan, a framework — these are crucial to a thoughtful, thorough, methodical modernization. No matter the precise design of your plan, it can help you shape your department or agency’s technology modernization — and ensure it meets state and federal mandates. Two of great consequence for California public transit agencies, Baig said, are the Federal Transit Administration’s State of Good Repair, which is dedicated to “helping transit agencies maintain bus and rail systems” and includes grant monies; and the state’s own Innovative Clean Transit Regulation which, generally, “requires all public transit agencies to gradually transition to a 100-percent zero-emission bus fleet and encourages them to provide innovative first- and last-mile connectivity and improved mobility for transit riders.” In the case of AC Transit, connecting its facilities, fleet and workforce will be crucial, the CIO said.
“So, we need to really put together a framework, an architecture to make sure that we take care of this ... from the technology perspective,” Baig said. “And that’s really going to help us, meaning the operation, to take a look at how we are going to optimize the energy management and how we are going to utilize those tools and technologies to deploy the right buses for the right route?” - The cloud isn’t free, but it can aid in innovation. Moving to the cloud still costs money but, said Baig, it “definitely does give scalability, it does give flexibility. It provides me with a platform where we can innovate much faster. We did not have that kind of a speed five years ago or 10 years ago.” There’s a cost to the bits and bytes, he added, cautioning attendees to be aware of “what’s going out of your ... outbound channels.” But, Baig said, the cloud can enable an IT shop to quickly meet its business needs and offer up a new platform fairly quickly when one is required.
- Asked by a vendor how the private sector can help governments resolve their technology challenges, Baig recommended trying to build connections with government — and “come prepared.” He reminded audience members of state Senate Bill 272, an update to the California Public Records Act on inventory. The bill, which cleared the governor’s desk in 2015, requires state and local governments — with the exception of educational entities, to create “a catalog of enterprise systems” and to make it publicly available.
“I ask my vendors to do two things. One is, understand ... what my technology pains are, which are pretty much listed in part of our IT strategic plan and our overall strategic plan,” Baig said. “And then, take a look at our enterprise IT systems, which is, as I said, SB 272. A lot of this information is already out there.”
