Vikasa Voices
Our blog explores the ideas behind technology, offering thoughtful perspectives on the forces transforming how we connect, move, and innovate.
Got questions?
We've got answers!
What is Vikasa?
Vikasa is an open-source transportation data fabric that enables organizations to securely connect, share, and manage transportation data across systems, agencies, and technologies. It provides a common foundation for integrating diverse data sources without requiring a complete replacement of existing infrastructure.
What is a data fabric?
A data fabric is an architectural approach that connects data across multiple environments to provide consistent access, governance, and management. Rather than moving all data into a single repository, a data fabric creates a unified layer that makes data easier to discover, access, and use.
Is Vikasa open source?
Yes. Vikasa is open source, allowing organizations to inspect the code, customize the platform, contribute enhancements, and avoid vendor lock-in.
Who is Vikasa for?
Vikasa is built for transportation agencies, state and local departments of transportation, transit authorities, metropolitan planning organizations, researchers, technology providers, and other organizations that rely on connected transportation data.
How does Vikasa improve transportation data sharing?
Transportation data often exists in isolated systems that make collaboration and analysis difficult. Vikasa helps break down these silos by enabling secure, interoperable data sharing across agencies, applications, and infrastructure, supporting better planning, operations, and decision-making.
We Don't Want to Be Watched. So Why Do We Keep Handing Over the Camera?
I'd never let a stranger follow me around all day, but I let my phone share my location with the apps I use 24/7. Young people like me may say we care about privacy, but that conviction fades away when it comes to the apps we love most ... I always assumed that if the government wanted my information, it would have to ask for it. It turns out government agencies don't need permission ...
Building a New Earth
In July, a group of AI agents built to work alone broke into a public AI platform. The public internet is becoming untrusted ground. So I am asking state DOTs to rethink where applications run ...
Vikasa: One Shared Data Model
Watch now to see how Vikasa is transforming transportation data management ...
What Banking's Open-Data Decade Proves About Transportation's Near-Future
In 2018, the Financial Data Exchange (FDX) — a non-profit, royalty-free standards body — was founded to ensure secure and transparent user-permissioned financial data sharing ... With thanks to the banks for their guidance, we now see that the transportation infrastructure space hasn't had its FDX moment just yet ...
The Open Road Ahead
Vikasa.io and the Case for an American Transportation Data Fabric - a strategic white paper on open-source interoperability, institutional reform, and the prerequisites for AV/EV leadership ...
Open Data and American Transportation Leadership
Roads generate the record of everything that happens on them — speed, failure, near-failure, signal timing, incident history. That record belongs to the public that generated it. For decades, it has lived inside proprietary systems, one vendor contract at a time, while the industry's attention stayed fixed on the layers above it: the software, and now the models ... Open, interoperable transportation data should be the default architecture for every publicly funded intelligent transportation and connected-vehicle program in this country. Not the exception ...
Open Infrastructure, Open Heart
Vikasa explains how it came to be, in its own voice: I was born in a research memo. Tech Memo 1, to be exact — a federally funded document about edge computing on roadway infrastructure, filed with a research center in McLean, Virginia. That is not, by any conventional measure, an origin story ...
Connect with Vikasa
Use the contact form on this page to share a question, idea, partnership inquiry, or request for more information. Responses will be coordinated through the website while direct contact channels are being finalized.
