Planning & Research
Enhancing Public Engagement: PennDOT Uses Public Comment Tracking Application for 12-Year Program Feedback
Building upon previous outreach efforts and the standard 12-Year Program (TYP) update process, which is required every two years under state law, the 2025 public outreach cycle marked the beginning of a concentrated focus on tracking public input, acknowledging, and responding to comments received during the TYP public comment period, which ran from March 3, 2025 to April 30, 2025.
To meet this goal, PennDOT’s Center for Program Development and Management coordinated with the Geographic Information (GIS) Division in PennDOT’s Bureau of Planning and Research to develop the Public Comment Tracking application to organize each comment in one of the public survey’s many categories. The goal in developing the application was to ensure every comment was reviewed and acknowledged by the appropriate planning teams for an opportunity to include in the development of new plans.
“Public involvement is a critical component of everything we do at PennDOT,” said PennDOT Deputy Secretary for Planning Kristin Mulkerin. “Leveraging innovative GIS technology has allowed the department to manage high volumes of feedback across many districts and planning organizations leading to more transparency and efficient public engagement.”
The survey features freeform text inputs to allow the description of the issue or proposal, options to categorize the comment, a map to accurately locate the problem area, hidden fields that automatically determine the planning agency, county, and municipality from the map input, and the ability for users to upload images. The survey submits data to a service that is connected to the application.
After review, PennDOT central office and district office staff, along with a variety of transportation planning partners, coordinated with the appropriate subject matter expert for a response. For example, maintenance concerns were shared with district executives and community relations coordinators to ensure awareness of the concern and that a response was provided. This illustrates how comments received were organized for review by various subject matter experts.
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The 2025 12-Year Program public outreach cycle marked the beginning of a concentrated focus on tracking public input, acknowledging, and responding to comments received during the TYP public comment period.
The application allows PennDOT staff and partners to review and provide follow-up information for each survey. It also contains a map of the geographic location of each survey that can be filtered by category, status, location, and more. As each survey is processed, its status is tracked and can easily be integrated with other components, like dashboards, to better display data.
Due to these efforts, the TYP public comments were comprehensively reviewed and acknowledged, and PennDOT was able to provide additional transparency to the public on how their concerns were addressed.
