{"slug":"u-s-department-of-transportation-builds-a-real-time-aviation-database-with-databricks","url":"https://findausecase.com/use-cases/u-s-department-of-transportation-builds-a-real-time-aviation-database-with-databricks","title":"U.S. Department of Transportation builds a real-time aviation database with Databricks","description":"The U.S. Department of Transportation used the Databricks Data + AI Platform on Azure with Delta Lake and Apache Kafka to unify FAA SWIM streaming data with on-premises Oracle and Sybase databases into a real-time commercial flight database, powering ML-driven predictions of air traffic patterns and reducing the cost of collecting and ingesting streaming data by 90% compared to other cloud solutions.","company":"U.S. Department of Transportation","industry":"Government & Public Sector","aiCapabilities":["Predictive Analytics","Machine Learning"],"technology":["Delta Lake","Apache Kafka"],"deployment":"Public Cloud","problemStatement":"USDOT needed to unify fragmented on-premises databases (Oracle, Sybase) and public FAA SWIM streaming data into a real-time commercial flight database to comply with updated Bureau of Transportation requirements, in an industry that traditionally relied on on-premises platforms rather than the cloud, making it hard to control data quality and scale without heavy manual review.","solutionApproach":"USDOT chose Microsoft Azure and the Databricks Data + AI Platform to democratize its various data sources, including on-premises databases like Oracle and Sybase, with real-time streaming via Apache Kafka, using Delta Lake to build reliable pipelines that feed Tableau and Power BI dashboards and machine learning models predicting air traffic patterns and passenger impact.","businessValue":"USDOT reduced the cost of collecting and ingesting streaming data by 90% compared to other cloud-based solutions, and its data engineers, scientists and analysts now collaborate on one platform to deliver real-time aviation dashboards and more accurate predictions about resource needs.","evidence":{"band":"high"},"sourceUrl":"https://www.databricks.com/customers/us-department-of-transportation","dates":{"publishedAt":"2026-09-29T05:46:45.722Z","publishedAtSource":"pipeline","updatedAt":"2026-09-29T05:46:45.722Z"},"license":"Open for reading and citing with a link to https://findausecase.com/use-cases/u-s-department-of-transportation-builds-a-real-time-aviation-database-with-databricks. Bulk republication requires permission."}