Connecting projects, people, and data for PennDOT

Departments of Transportation (DOTs) across the country face many of the same challenges. There are more projects than ever before and even tighter deadlines, all with a close eye on funding.

Most DOTs have accumulated dozens of systems over the decades, including planning tools, permitting systems, design platforms, construction management systems, and more. The problem is they rarely connect gracefully. Teams rely on manual handoffs, and there’s confusion about a single source of truth for a project.

Data lives in separate systems with different formats. According to the 2026 State of Design & Make: Spotlight on Transportation, digital transformation is a clear priority, but siloed data remains a struggle. While the majority of transportation organizations have implemented BIM and GIS, 40% of companies are still struggling with siloed data, and more than 8 out of 10 say poor data management impacts project efficiency. For DOTs to get ahead and stay ahead, both a cultural and technological shift is necessary.

PennDOT is a prime example. Like other DOTs, scale is constant and inevitable to support the Pennsylvania community. Each year, the agency manages 600 to 800 active construction projects, with two to three times as many in design, supported by an annual budget exceeding 2 billion dollars. The department saw the opportunities—and advantages—of taking a new approach to their technology and workflows.

Over the past 15 years, PennDOT has been advancing its digital transformation. And, over the last few years, it has become a tangible reality with the Project Delivery Collaboration Center (PDCC)built on Autodesk Forma as its digital backbone. The PDCC focuses on collaboration, transparency, and consistency to improve project delivery and make better use of resources. Now, PennDOT can centralize critical project information that was once scattered across emails, spreadsheets, shared drives, and disconnected applications. Everyone can be on the same page with where a project stands and who owns the next step.

“The benefits of the PDCC are increased communication between the design team members, our partners, federal highways, and our executive staff,” says Kelly M. Barber, Chief Engineer of Highway Administration, PennDOT. “We plan to leverage consistency across our districts and central office with standard submittals and file naming conventions as well as streamlining our processes by having those electronic workflows and reviews.”

“No more paper. No more email trail trying to figure out if things got lost in someone's inbox,” she adds. “It’s a system that's going to hold all of us accountable because we will know who has the document, who's reviewing it, and how long it's taken them to review it.”

For the past five years, GFT has led the PDCC development and deployment. The company was chosen because of its deep transportation expertise, experience integrating complex enterprise systems, and long-standing partnership with PennDOT. The team began development with a strong understanding of PennDOT’s ecosystem, business processes, and project delivery environment already in place. GFT had years of experience working alongside the agency across engineering, GIS, and program delivery, which helped accelerate collaboration and align the solution with PennDOT’s long-term digital transformation goals.

“These projects involve large teams, long timelines, and a significant amount of project data spread across different systems,” says Peg Bradley, Vice President, GFT. “PennDOT wanted a way to bring that information together into a more connected and accessible environment so teams could better track progress, coordinate reviews, and manage delivery.”

The initial approach considered a custom-built solution, but PennDOT made a strategic decision to move toward a SaaS platform using Autodesk Forma. GFT evaluated the PDCC requirements against Forma and found that the platform could provide many of the needed capabilities while still allowing the flexibility and integration required for PennDOT’s environment. “At that point, the team was still exploring what Forma could do within PennDOT’s environment,” Bradley says. “We approached it with the concept of a minimum viable product to get people in there and using it. By picking those small, quick wins, we could prove the functionality and help people see what was possible.”

GFT didn’t approach PDCC as a “rip and replace.” Instead, the team designed it as a connective layer across PennDOT’s existing digital landscape. Internally, the concept is often described as a “flexible backbone.” Since Forma is an open platform built for interoperability across industry solutions, the PDCC provides a structure that brings together data, workflows, and systems. GFT built integrations that pull in data from third-party applications including scheduling systems, project management tools, GIS databases, and more. The result is a unified interface where users can see everything that matters without losing the systems they rely on.

A key integration is visible in the dashboards. A project manager can open a single view and see schedule data pulled from one system, funding data from another, document status, and review progress all in one place. Instead of logging into multiple platforms, they start from a single screen.

“We're not replacing what they already had…We’re bringing it together,” Bradley says. “If there are 12 systems with information about a project, we can pull that into one place where you can see it. For example, we’re not replacing all their environmental permitting systems, but we're pulling data in to show them the status of their environmental permits.”

According to Bradley, efficiency is measured in months rather than minutes for infrastructure design, especially for DOTs due to the size and scale of their portfolios. Reducing review cycle delays or improving document access can significantly impact project timelines.

“By adopting digital project delivery, the savings in time alone has been exponential by automating our workflows, especially from paper to digital,” Barber says.

A universal pain point across PennDOT was reviews and sign-offs. Now, the PDCC provides new efficiency with an at-a-glance view. Documents move through defined review processes with Forma. Every action is logged automatically. When a review is complete, a summary record is generated to show who has reviewed and approved with time stamps, roles, and direct links back to the original files. This now replaces the former patchwork of emails and spreadsheets.

Another impactful outcome with the PDCC is visibility at the portfolio level. PennDOT operates across 11 engineering districts. Leadership can now see the status of projects across districts, including review timelines and scheduling. If projects are delayed, leadership can identify whether the issue is staffing or planning. That level of insight simply did not exist before.

“On infrastructure projects, missing critical dates can be very expensive,” Bradley says. “With the PDCC, they have greater visibility into where roadblocks are occurring and can better understand what may be affecting project schedules.”

Currently, GFT is embarking on a new implementation of Forma for the PDCC, focused on extending PDCC capabilities into construction workflows. They’re already planning on using Forma’s out-of-the box features, including user administration tools, help documentation, search, and mobile capabilities. The team is also looking at specific products fromAutodesk Forma Build, including sheets, files, specifications, issues, forms, photos, and scheduling.

“We’re really trying to complement their existing systems with a focus on improving collaboration,” says Lexie Gawelko, project manager, GFT. “They have a number of different applications and systems supporting construction today. Some are integrated, while others operate independently. We’re looking to create an environment that brings that information together with Forma’s functionality, creating templates and master data, and bring those into the PDCC, too.”

For other DOTs looking to make a change and embark on a digital transformation like the PDCC, GFT’s advice is to take a deep look at where they are now and where they want to be.

“It’s important for DOTs to step back and evaluate how their documents, systems, and tools are connected today,” Bradley says. “We often talk about creating a ‘flexible backbone’ — a system that provides consistency around critical project workflows, document management, and approvals, while still allowing teams the flexibility they need to deliver projects effectively.

That’s really what we’ve tried to achieve with the PDCC, and Forma provides the flexibility and tools to help make that possible.”