From Data Chaos to Clarity: How CapMetro Built an Enterprise GIS for Transit

The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority (CapMetro)—the public transit agency serving Austin and the Central Texas region in the United States—transformed its data chaos into a streamlined, enterprise-wide geographic information system (GIS). By automating the integration of diverse data sources using Safe Software’s FME and Esri’s ArcGIS Enterprise, CapMetro reduced the manual effort required to build and maintain a robust enterprise GIS. Now CapMetro supports real-time operations like vehicle tracking and incident response, planning workflows such as demographic and accessibility analysis, and emergency preparedness through centralized dashboards and field data collection—all with greater efficiency and accuracy.

Faced with the challenge of building an enterprise GIS to serve the diverse needs of hundreds of users, CapMetro turned to automation. Over the past ten years, it has refined its use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions—most notably Esri partner Safe Software’s FME geospatial extract, transform, and load (ETL) tool—with ArcGIS Enterprise, SQL, and Python to achieve its goals. Together, these systems form the backbone of CapMetro’s geospatial platform.

The goal was to gather data from across the agency and from local authoritative sources, convert it into spatial formats, and bring it into ArcGIS Enterprise—a mapping and analytics platform that runs on a private infrastructure. Staff could then meet diverse user needs by configuring maps and presenting intuitive, interactive data visualizations on a single screen using ArcGIS Dashboards.

The challenge? The data came in many different formats and siloed systems that needed to be integrated. 

Most public transit agencies aren’t short on data; they’re overwhelmed by it. CapMetro’s data originated from different single-purpose solutions such as scheduling and run-cutting solutions, automatic passenger count (APC) systems, and scheduling adherence applications. Add other static and dynamic data such as General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data, GTFS Realtime  vehicle locations, and Waze, and the complexity multiplies. Much of this was done with little regard for how individual products may need to interact with other systems.

FME’s strength lies in its ability to take this diverse data from different software solutions and transform it into a common standard format, making it ready for ArcGIS Enterprise.

CapMetro provides route information and schedules to external users and the public through GTFS, a commonly used format for sharing transit data. Since it contains only static or scheduled information, the GTFS data is combined with data from other sources to create some of the applications that CapMetro uses and supports daily.

Internally, the agency applies the same GTFS data to ensure consistency across systems. According to Mike Long, the geospatial technologies program manager at CapMetro, the agency wanted unified processes for all its data. Using FME, GTFS data is brought into ArcGIS Enterprise to support more complex analyses of routes and stops.

As operational needs evolved, so did the demand for real-time data and a scalable, robust infrastructure. Legacy systems, while functional for many years, began to struggle to keep up with the volume and frequency of data being generated—especially with the addition of systems like GTFS Realtime and the City of Austin’s traffic signal network.

To address this, CapMetro migrated to ArcGIS Enterprise and FME Flow to the cloud and adopted a cloud data warehouse for historical data. This strategic move enables the agency to enhance capacity and provide a more efficient, dynamic, and accessible platform for real-time data analysis.

This redesigned infrastructure enables CapMetro to display route activity across different time frames, track vehicle breakdowns with greater precision, and ensure that stops are accurately represented as active or inactive in relation to current routes. The integration of real-time data sources—combined with the ability to efficiently store and query large datasets in the cloud data warehouse—also supports the development of performance metrics and analytical tools that were previously limited by infrastructure constraints.

The switch to the cloud not only meets the growing demand for real-time updates but also provides the scalability needed for CapMetro’s expanding data collection efforts and accelerates decision-making. The cloud data warehouse further enhances this capability by enabling rapid querying and analysis of large datasets, making it easier to gain insights from diverse sources such as GTFS Realtime, traffic signals, and other operational data streams.

By modernizing its data infrastructure, CapMetro is better equipped to meet real-time operational needs. The agency can now unlock new opportunities for service improvements, safety measures, and performance analysis—all of which are crucial for maintaining and enhancing its transportation network.

The CapMetro geospatial platform now includes nearly 1,000 different data layers in ArcGIS Enterprise and over 100 FME Flow schedules, executing close to 35,000 operations per day. These range from once-a-day processes to those happening every few seconds. While this automation has been a major success, the volume of data has grown so large that it can be difficult for users to navigate.

To address this, CapMetro’s GIS team created a series of enterprise sites within the portal that guide users to content and provide them with instructions on how to install apps such as ArcGIS QuickCapture and ArcGIS Field Maps. The team is also building out several different galleries to make solutions more discoverable. According to Long, more users are now linking their own ArcGIS Pro solutions directly to the portal and pulling in layers from it—placing ArcGIS Enterprise at the center of their geospatial workflows.

Operational uses of the GIS data continue to expand, and FME consistently proves its value by enabling seamless querying across diverse data sources. In one recent project, the GIS team needed to query incident data on the transit network. Thanks to a historical archive of all automatic vehicle location (AVL) data, the team was able to trace incidents back using vehicle location history—even when route or stop data was unavailable.

GIS also plays a critical role in emergency operations, providing real-time visibility into vehicle and personnel locations across systems. Fixed-route buses, nonrevenue vehicles such as maintenance crew transport, and paratransit vehicles are each tracked through separate systems tailored to their operational needs. Using FME, CapMetro integrates these disparate streams of information, and the information is consolidated into ArcGIS Enterprise, creating a unified, map-based view. This centralized approach enables the emergency management office to quickly access and analyze critical data during emergencies, ensuring informed decision-making and efficient deployment of resources.

In weather-related incidents or other emergency events, preparedness teams use Field Maps (currently in the testing stage) to quickly deploy operatives to affected areas. By combining field data with weather, traffic, and road-closure information from sources like Waze, CapMetro gains enhanced situational awareness. Maps and dashboards with this integrated data are organized in a centralized hub, giving decision-makers easy access to the information they need for a faster, more coordinated response.

CapMetro’s Capital Construction, Engineering & Design (CCED) Department previously lacked a standardized system for storing and tracking high-level project elements. As a by-product of this digital transformation and collaboration with other teams, the GIS team has helped expand the technology’s use in project delivery, facilities, and real estate management. This data has been integrated into a centralized dashboard. Users can filter assets by type—such as administration buildings or rail terminuses—or by specific name. The dashboard also displays information on surrounding land use and building details, including floor plans.

Another valuable application enables the visualization and analysis of walksheds, which help calculate the walking times between stops or from nearby locations. By leveraging data from the American Community Survey and APC systems, CapMetro can better understand ridership patterns and demographics for individual routes and stops. With street and sidewalk data, along with network analysis tools, analysts can better assess the impact of moving a stop, or evaluate how service changes affect accessibility and ridership.

Although originally developed for planning, this demographic analysis has proved helpful for CapMetro Pickup, the agency’s on-demand microtransit service. CapMetro Pickup is particularly effective in areas where deploying a full-size bus is impractical due to street or sidewalk limitations.

These are just a few from the growing list of GIS dashboards, applications, and hubs that have been created to support hundreds of users within CapMetro. After nearly a decade of investment, CapMetro has emerged as a leader among transit agencies in building a comprehensive geospatial platform. By tightly integrating FME with ArcGIS Enterprise, the agency has automated data exchange and focused its efforts on developing spatial tools that improve operations, safety, planning, service delivery, and performance management.