The North Carolina Department of Transportation has extended its MetroQuest public involvement subscription to include all Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and Rural Planning Organizations (RPOs) in 2019.

A forward-thinking agency, NCDOT confirmed its commitment to exceptional public involvement this month when it extended its annual MetroQuest subscription to include the 18 Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) and 18 Rural Planning Organizations (RPOs) in the State.

The whole team at MetroQuest is excited to extend a very warm welcome to all 36 planning agencies. We’re thrilled to have them join the growing MetroQuest community. This month, our friendly and knowledgeable Customer Success Team is travelling throughout North Carolina to meet our new friends in person and to support smooth onboarding.

With an annual MetroQuest subscription, these agencies can launch unlimited educational surveys, engage thousands of people, and analyze public preferences with colorful dashboards. Expect to see outstanding public participation throughout the State of North Carolina in 2019!

“NCDOT has been using MetroQuest public involvement software to support various planning initiatives over the last three years,” said NCDOT Chief Deputy Secretary David Howard. “In leveraging this tool as a key component of our public involvement strategy, we’ve been able to increase the level of public participation and collect significantly more quality data.”

“All MPOs and RPOs in North Carolina will now have a new tool for their own online public involvement,” continued Howard. “Using common technology across all agencies will help create a better, more efficient public involvement process throughout the state.”

We’d like to congratulate NCDOT! Since 2016, the agency has collected nearly 120,000 data points of informed public input using MetroQuest surveys to better support planning efforts statewide. That’s worth celebrating.

“In 2018, we had unprecedented levels of engagement across multiple projects, including nearly 4,600 survey participants for our State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP),” reported Jamille Robbins, Public Involvement, Community Studies, and Visualization Group Leader at NCDOT. Read the NCDOT case study to learn about Jamille’s earlier success →

NCDOT is in good company. MetroQuest online surveys have been used to optimize public involvement by state agencies, including Arkansas DOT, Arizona DOT, Florida DOT, Maine DOT, Minnesota DOT, Missouri DOT, Montana DOT, South Carolina DOT, Texas DOT, and Wisconsin DOT.

Among America’s largest transportation agencies, they’ve used MetroQuest to optimize public participation in the planning of all types of projects, including bike and pedestrian, transit, corridor, and bridge plans as part of their statewide long-range transportation programs.

With 10,500 employees, NCDOT is the largest agency in history to extend its MetroQuest subscription to all regional agencies. We’re seeing a growing trend with DOTs building on their own public involvement success to empower regional agencies.

In 2018, Maine DOT extended its MetroQuest subscription to all MPOs in the state. We hope many other DOTs will take notice in 2019.