An Internet-Based Multimedia Highway Information System

Abstract

As a part of highway infrastructure management, photographic logging systems are used widely in highway departments. However, the technology associated with current photographic logging systems is largely based on analog video technology. New technologies in digital video, the Internet, and database management have provided opportunities to overcome the limitations of analog video and improve the accessibility and functionality of photographic logging and traditional engineering databases. This article describes a newly developed multimedia-based highway information system (MMHIS) and its implementations in the World Wide Web environment. MMHIS is an integrated database system combining traditional highway engineering site data with visual graphic and roadway videos. The objective of developing the Web-based MMHIS was to establish a Web site and a server to provide simultaneous information retrievals of the multimedia database through the Internet and the highway agency's internal computer network. This article presents the capabilities of MMHIS and discusses the implementation of a WWW-based MMHIS. It is concluded that it is cost-effective to establish a Web-based MMHIS for production purposes.