The Lab @ DDOT is the in-house research team for the District Department of Transportation (DDOT). The team brings civic design, data science, and evaluation capacity to improve safety and accessibility for the District’s residents, commuters, and visitors. It builds on investments DDOT has made over the last decade to transform how it tracks performance and informs the public about its work. Most of the founding Lab @ DDOT staff began their time in District government at The Lab @ DC in the Office of the City Administrator, which allowed the team to build on their experience to quickly deliver impactful research.
Since 2016, The Lab has developed relationships and resources that enable transparent, rigorous, and community-informed research. The Lab @ DC, The Lab @ DDOT, and other agency-based Lab staff form a network to support innovative and evidence-driven work across District government. This network provides support to all Lab teams by co-staffing our projects, unsticking technical problems, and sharing tools.
Sitting side-by-side with traffic engineers, trail planners, and foresters means that The Lab @ DDOT is immersed in the complexities of the department and the problems it’s trying to solve in a way that wouldn’t be possible from outside the agency. It’s easier to start new projects, because The Lab @ DDOT has built relationships with the staff involved, worked with the data, and grappled with the sticky issues. The Lab @ DDOT can also more easily develop projects that build on each other to address challenges that can’t be solved overnight. We’re learning from our past efforts and directing our future work to shape better policy. For example:
- Mayor Bowser’s investments in bicycle infrastructure provide safe and convenient multimodal access throughout the city. The Lab @ DDOT has projects both analyzing how this infrastructure is being used and testing out speed feedback machines to slow trail users down at congestion points.
- In 2025, The Lab @ DC completed a project targeting messages to risky drivers. The analysis grappled with the historical inequalities of road designs that increase vehicle speeds and crashes in Black and brown communities. Since DDOT places more traffic cameras where crashes are happening, a resident of these neighborhoods, even if their driving behavior is exactly the same, might be more likely to get a ticket than another. The Lab @ DDOT’s project evaluating the impacts of traffic fine reductions on payment rates and future citations builds on that previous work.
Finally, it’s important that research on transportation not only focus on sidewalks, roads, and bridges, but also where people are using the transportation system to go—like schools, doctor’s offices, libraries. The network of Labs facilitates shared learning across agencies; this inter-agency collaboration is essential to answer questions that transcend transportation. For example, The Lab @ DDOT’s project developing solutions to strengthen our school crossing guard workforce impacts DC Public Schools, charter schools, and PTAs, so we brought them into the research.
Since Mayor Bowser launched the Lab @ DC, incubating civic design, data science, and evaluation capacity throughout District government has been at the heart of its work. What we’re learning at DDOT can also inform how other agencies build in-house research capacity—laying the groundwork for a more innovative, evidence-informed government in the District.
If you’re in District Government and interested in learning more about building research capacity at your agency, reach out to us at the.lab@dc.gov.