HNTB’s digital innovators have been key resources to Iowa DOT in the development and continued enhancement of their virtual public involvement management platform called the Public Involvement Management Application (PIMA). Iowa DOT took on this initiative in order to increase the amount of citizen input into transportation projects, reduce and remove manual work processes in administering public involvement activities, and to improve the consistency of data collection for both in-person and online public meetings.

Input from stakeholders across hundreds of projects is stored in a central database, allowing Iowa DOT to look at analytics and trends in all elements of stakeholder engagement in order to improve project decision-making. This intuitive, enterprising solution enables any public agency to manage the full process of public engagement on one or all of its projects.

Key features of PIMA include:

  • Meeting management, invitation, and attendance tracking
  • Configurable comment forms with interactive mapping
  • Manage stakeholder conversation through email or text messaging
  • Track favorability and key topics across all project phases
  • Facilitate virtual live public meetings or incorporate virtual reality spaces
  • Measure equity, inclusion and communities of concern participation

Together, Iowa DOT and HNTB are partnering with other agencies to deploy and further enhance PIMA. Through a consortium of multi-agency support, PIMA is providing efficiency and consistency for public agencies’ management of community and stakeholder engagement. This partnership to further advance PIMA also allows us to keep a strong focus on inclusion, accessibility and social equity – no matter where the project may be located, or the community it is meant to serve.

To learn more about PIMA, click here.

Location: Iowa

Client: Iowa Department of Transportation

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