Geographic Information Systems For Transportation Research Articles

Traditional environmental knowledge and transport efficiency of a communal canal network, Tafilalt oasis, Morocco: A historical GIS analytics perspective

The provision of water in the arid Tafilalt – the largest natural oasis in Morocco – changed little over a span of centuries, though the network of surface canals and khettara (qanats) gradually expanded to yield more water to a growing oasis. The introduction of newer water technologies (pumped wells and dams) in the 1970s reduced the availability of water to the oasis but has not diminished reliance on the traditional canal network. All agriculture in this Sahara oasis is irrigated and most water is still distributed through an intricate system of earthen canals incrementally built over centuries and maintained to this day. Here, a traditional environmental knowledge (TEK) and transportation GIS framework is used to explore the efficacy of this common property canal network. Aerial photographic and field survey, interviews with users and managers of canal waters, and GIS network analysis were employed to examine the functional characteristics and communal issues inherent in the canal system, and to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of the traditional system as a water delivery network. GIS analytics employed to assess the distributive utility of the canal network include the Detour Index, Alpha Index, Beta Index, Gamma Index, and Network Density. The first four indices address the efficiency and connectivity of the complex canal network while Network Density assesses the effectiveness of the system in distributing water throughout the oasis. Results demonstrate the strength and adaptability of local TEK, revealing that the historic canal system was incrementally but not haphazardly constructed, and the system that evolved exhibits an efficiency of water distribution closely approximating the efficiency that could be obtained using advanced design and modern planning methods.

Geographic Information System (GIS-T) database design for transportation safety system (case study: spatial database for road transportation system in Indonesia)

This study aimed to develop a spatial database design on transportation safety system. Spatial databases is a fundamental factor that is very important in the utilization of GIS for transportation, so it is important that a good preparation of spatial databases. Preparation of spatial database will be effective if tailored to the needs. Factors affecting transportation safety is different from one region to another. Factors that affect transportation safety system in an area can be influenced by the transportation system infrastructure in the area. Database design for transportation safety in this study is expected to be a model of the spatial database according to the highway transportation system in a small town in Indonesia. Characteristics of the transport system in Indonesia was largely dominated by private vehicles and less of public transport. Spatial analysis has the advantage to combine data and analyze various factors based on spatial location. Spatial data that can be used to support the analysis include the basic data, thematic data path, data that can be supporting the highway transportation system. Spatial data and GIS - T can be used as an analysis tool and alternative approach to improve road transport safety.

GIS-based models for transport network emergency management

The authors investigated the methods of structural-parametric synthesis, mathematical modeling and optimal control of transport networks from the position of the system analysis. The goals of ensuring the transport infrastructure safety with the positions of the transport network optimal load are determined especially in case of emergency situations. The paper describes the requirements for the development of a mathematical model of the transport network loading. A large number of studies on the transport network load is carried out in the environment of the “ITSGIS” intelligent transport geographic information system and was aimed at the development of the algorithm for automatic detection of emergency situations and congestion. The emergency situation types are characterized by its location, i.e. its coordinates on the electronic map. The emergency time is considered from various positions, such as time of occurrence, normative and actual time of elimination. The geofences of an emergency situation influence are divided into areas of direct and indirect emergency situation influence on transport processes and transport infrastructure objects. On the basis of the constructed models developed management methods of transport network loading and emergency situations analysis, including the collection and processing of raw data, the emergency situations determination and their characteristics, the optimal response strategy choice, the performance of management functions.

Identifying “Sensible Locations” for Separated Bike Lanes on a Congested Urban Road Network: A Toronto Case Study

Across North America, separated bike lanes have generated political challenges from drivers concerned that such facilities might increase their travel times. Toronto is one such city where vocal complaints have limited the development of a separated bike lane network. To address these issues, a new approach to evaluating the travel-time impact of installing a separated bike lane is proposed. Aided by a transportation geographic information system (GIS) and a GIS toolkit, we apply a method called the network robustness index (NRI) to scan the Toronto road network for changes in vehicular travel times. Additionally, we use the approach to evaluate the potential travel-time impact of adding a separated bike lane to a target corridor, one where plans have encountered political opposition in the past. These two applications demonstrate the value of integrating the NRI approach into cycling planning—a method that can be used to both identify potential separated bike lane locations and to measure the specific travel-time impacts of separated bike lanes.

Research and Application of the Optimal Repair Path Based on BP-Dijkstra in the Distribution Network

The existing power system emergency repair system mainly relies on manual scheduling and selection of traffic paths based on experiences. Also, the existing traffic navigation has only one-time route planning, which may not be intelligent enough to fit the traffic changes. In order to solve the above problems, this paper establishes a power emergency repair system based on GPRS wireless communication technology, on-board GPS terminal equipment, transportation and power system GIS. Based on the current traffic information, BP neural network is used to predict the average speed of different paths and to calculate the running time of each path. The Dijkstra algorithm was introduced in the later stage to find the optimal repair path with the shortest time duration. The updates of time settings during optimization are introduced. The original optimal repair path is maintained within the set time limits; otherwise the new path will be updated. In this paper, a complex traffic network analysis and simulation verification are presented. The results show that the algorithm is feasible and applicable.

A Dynamic Spatiotemporal Analysis Model for Traffic Incident Influence Prediction on Urban Road Networks

Traffic incidents have a broad negative impact on both traffic systems and the quality of social activities; thus, analyzing and predicting the influence of traffic incidents dynamically is necessary. However, the traditional geographic information system for transportation (GIS-T) mostly presents fundamental data and static analysis, and transportation models focus predominantly on some typical road structures. Therefore, it is important to integrate transportation models with the spatiotemporal analysis techniques of GIS to address the dynamic process of traffic incidents. This paper presents a dynamic spatiotemporal analysis model to predict the influence of traffic incidents with the assistance of a GIS database and road network data. The model leverages a physical traffic shockwave model, and different superposition situations of shockwaves are proposed for both straight roads and road networks. Two typical cases were selected to verify the proposed model and were tested with the car-following model and real-world monitoring data. The results showed that the proposed model could successfully predict traffic effects with over 60% accuracy in both cases, and required less computational resources than the car-following model. Compared to other methods, the proposed model required fewer dynamic parameters and could be implemented on a wider set of road hierarchies.

Angle Difference Method for Vehicle Navigation in Multilevel Road Networks With a Three-Dimensional Transport GIS Database

Multilevel road networks such as grade-separated interchanges and elevated roads have been increasingly used to solve traffic congestion in large cities. When navigating a vehicle in a multilevel road network, identifying the location of the vehicle in different road levels is of equal importance to identifying its planar location, particularly for overlapping and parallel roads. Although they can be represented and visualized in the existing navigation system, at present, it is difficult to guide a vehicle through such a multilevel road network because the existing vehicle positioning system uses consumer-grade GPS, and the transport geographic information system (GIS-T) database is mainly 2-D-based. The location of a vehicle on diffrent road levels in multilevel road networks is often overlooked. This paper examines the deficiency of existing approaches in supporting vehicle navigation in multilevel road networks with consumer-grade GPS. It proposes to use an angle difference method that compares the vehicle pitch angle with the inclination angles of different road levels calculated from road elevations stored in the proposed GIS-T database to snap the vehicle to the appropriate road level when the vehicle is entering or exiting a multilevel road network. The angle difference method is implemented based on consumer-grade assisted GPS (A-GPS) and onboard vehicle pitch angle measurement with smartphone. Experiment results prove that the angle difference method have high accuracy in determining the road level when the vehicle is driving in a parallel multilevel road network.

An approach for GIS-based transport infrastructure model synthesis on the basis of hyperspectral information

The paper describes a method of a thematic layer synthesis in an intelligent transport geographic information system displaying the immanent properties of transport network elements. Structural and parametrical synthesis of the thematic layer is formed on the basis of hyperspectral information during identification of the pavement condition. Thematic layer represents spatial distribution of the attributes referring to the objects class ‘Traffic_area’ in the borders and corresponds to sizes of the original image.

A Study on Object-Oriented Multi-Level Data Model of Public transport

The data model as the basis of public transportation geographic information system, determine the structure of the data in the system, to ensure the system data storage, editing, maintenance of logic and science, is the key to achieve the function of the system. In this paper, based on the Object-oriented technology, it constructed to meet the multi-level complex data model ofgeographic information system in transportation demand. In the classification of objects, it divides the objects into spatial object and non-spatial object.In hierarchical structure, it classifies public transportation as semantic level, non-directed leveland directedlevel.In the realization of model, it uses UML and CASE tools in ArcGIS to express public transportation objects and establish object model. This model incorporated all objects into one unified system so as to achieve multi-scale application of the public transportation information system.

Geographic Information Systems for Transportation in the 21st Century

AbstractGeographic Information Systems for Transportation: Principles and Applications (Miller and Shaw ) remains the only major authored text on the interdisciplinary field of Geographic Information Systems for Transportation (GIS‐T). However, Miller and Shaw () is a product of the 20th century, and the fields of GIS, transportation and GIS‐T have changed dramatically in the early 21st century. We are witnessing a revolution in transportation and urban sciences, fueled by a stunning advancement in capabilities to capture, store and process data, as well as communicate information and knowledge derived from these data. This paper is a review of GIS‐T in the 20th and 21st centuries. Using Miller and Shaw () as a touchstone, we discuss elements of GIS‐T that have stood the test of time as well as new technologies and ideas that an updated GIS‐T canon should include.

American Banking and the Transportation Revolution before the Civil War

Studies have shown a connection between finance and growth, but most do not consider how financial and real factors interact to put a virtuous cycle of economic development into motion. As the main transportation advance of the nineteenth century, railroads connected established commercial centers and made unsettled areas along their routes better candidates for development. We measure the strength of links between railroads and banks in seven Midwest states using an annual transportation geographic information system (GIS) database linked to a census of banking. These data indicate that those counties that already had a bank were more likely to see their first railroad go through over the next decade, while new banks tended to enter a county a year or two after a railroad was built. The initial banking system thus helped establish the rail system, while the rapid expansion of railroads helped fill in the banking map of the American Midwest.

Building Emission Map of Inter-regional Roads Using Transportation Planning Model and GIS

Building Emission Map of Inter-regional Roads Using Transportation Planning Model and GIS

Combining Geographic Information Systems for Transportation and Mixed Integer Linear Programming in Facility Location-Allocation Problems

In this study, we aimed to assess the solution quality for location-allocation problems from facilities generated by the software TransCAD® , a Geographic Information System for Transportation (GIS-T). Such facilities were obtained after using two routines together: Facility Location and Transportation Problem, when compared with optimal solutions from exact mathematical models, based on Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP), developed externally for the GIS. The models were applied to three simulations: the first one proposes opening factories and customer allocation in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil; the second involves a wholesaler and a study of location and allocation of distribution centres for retail customers; and the third one involves the location of day-care centers and allocation of demand (0 - 3 years old children). The results showed that when considering facility capacity, the MILP optimising model presents results up to 37% better than the GIS and proposes different locations to open new facilities.

The logistics of supplying single vs. multi-crop cellulosic feedstocks to a biorefinery in southeast North Dakota

This study investigates the economics of supplying cellulosic crop residue feedstocks within 100mile (or 161km) radius of a potential new biorefinery in southeast North Dakota. We utilize linear programming transportation models and GIS (Geographic Information System) maps to identify optimal cellulosic feedstock supply sites for the biorefinery. Our evidence indicates that future crop residue removal policy will be important in assessing economic viability of harvesting crop residues for biofuel production. An increase in residue removal rate would narrow the size of supply areas required to provide total feedstock need for the biorefinery and consequently result in reducing transportation costs. There is an economic tradeoff between residue collection density and distance from the biorefinery. When multiple residue feedstocks are considered, this analysis is complicated further because greatest densities for each crop are not in similar regions. Overall, our findings show that higher costs savings can be achieved if multiple feedstocks are employed to produce cellulosic biofuels. In addition, feedstock supply risks can be lower with the use of multiple feedstocks.

Towards a Rule-driven Approach for Updating Dynamic Road Segments

In recent years, the development of the GIS-T (Geographic Information System for Transportation) applications has gained much attention, providing the transportation planners and managers with in-depth knowledge to achieve better decisions. Needless to say, developing a successful GIS for transportation applications is highly dependent on the design of a well-structured data model. Dynamic segmentation (DS) data model is a popular one being used more and more for different GIS-T analyses, serving as a data model that splits linear features into new set of segments wherever its attributes change. In most cases, the sets of segments presenting a particular attribute change frequently. Transportation managers place great importance on having regular update and revision of segmented data to ensure correct and precise decisions are made. However, updating the segmented data manually is a difficult task and a time-consuming process to do, demanding an automatic approach. To alleviate this, the present study describes a rule-based method using topological concept to simply update road segments and replace the manual tasks that users are to carry out. The proposed approach was employed and implemented on real road network data of the City of Tehran provided by the Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization (RMTO) of Iran. The practical results demonstrated that the time, cost, human-type errors, and complexity involved in update tasks are all reduced. KEYWORDS: GIS-T, dynamic segmentation, segment, automatic update, change type, rule

A new approach for solving the network problems

This study aims to optimize the number of nodes and arcs in a constructed network employing a given criteria. For this, we subject the constructed network using the methods like Shortest Path (SP), Critical Path (CP) and Max-Flow (MF) between any pair of nodes. A set of iterative algorithms have been generated using matrix operations to meet the above requirement, which is named as Pandit’s algorithm. The equivalent algorithms for SP, CP and MF are hereby represented as Pandit’s Mini-additive, Maxi-additive and Max-min algorithms respectively. The generated algorithms take less number of iterations when compared to the established methods. The proposed new algorithms are shown with suitable numerical examples and discuss their merits over the established methods. These new algorithms take less computational time and hence suggested for solving the bulk networks such as transportation GIS, telecommunication networks, information systems, project scheduling etc.

An approach for automatic updating of GIS road segments for a pavement management system (PMS)

The GIS-T (Geographic Information System for Transportation) dynamic segmentation (DS) technique can be effectively employed by pavement management systems (PMS) to provide more detailed information on road conditions by using the segments. In most cases, segments present attributes that change frequently either spatially or non-spatially. In order to ensure correct and successful decision-making processes in transportation-related activities, regular updates and revision of segmented data are essential. Manual updating of the segmented data is a complex and time-consuming process. Thus, it is highly beneficial to provide an easy and efficient way to update segments. This paper presents a rule-based method for automatic updating of road segments using the DS technique. The proposed approach was implemented for the Road Maintenance and Transportation Organisation (RMTO) of Iran on road network data of Tehran city. The experimental results indicate many useful aspects of this approach that made it efficient. These include a remarkable decrease of time, cost, occurrence of human-type errors, and complexity involved in update operations.

The Types,Methodologies and Application of GIS-T

Geographic Information System for Transportation(GIS T) has been widely used in the designing and management of roads network and other facilities. In this paper the types, methodologies, data models and spatial analysis of GIS T are introduced in detail. The principle based on arc-node topological relation and dynamic segment are expatiated by a development instance. Some problems, such as building rich query, the mileage mark system and the road descriptive system, are also discussed by a sample of GIS T for Northwestern China. The application instance of GIS T showed that it would greatly improve the convenience and efficiency of the transportation vocation.

Geographic information systems for transportation: from a static past to a dynamic future

Geographic information systems for transportation earned its moniker of GIS-T because of active GIS-T research and applications carried out over the years. There were several GIS-T books and review papers published around the turn of the twenty-first century. As we are now 10 years into the new century, it is an appropriate time to assess the past accomplishments and look into the future of GIS-T. This article first discusses the ‘T’ in GIS-T with a review of the critical transportation issues identified by the US Transportation Research Board. Past GIS-T developments are then presented from three different perspectives of using GIS-T as a spatial database, using GIS-T as an analysis and modeling environment, and using GIS-T as a communication tool. Because of the static map layers view and the conventional GIS data models, past GIS-T developments are weak in handling dynamic movements, changes, and processes in transportation systems. Our world, on the other hand, has become increasingly dynamic because of the widespread use of modern information and communication technologies. GIS-T therefore must transform itself to accommodate this dynamic and changing world. A discussion of the dynamic future of GIS-T is presented in this article.

Estimating Geometric Parameters of Highways and Railways Using Least-Squares Adjustment

This paper introduces a least-squares based approach that is developed for the estimation of horizontal geometric parameters of highways and railways. Curve recovery forms an important procedure in the establishment of the spatial database of a Geographic Information System for Transportation (GIS-T), which is especially essential nowadays when different mobile mapping systems such as those using Global Positioning System (GPS) are widely employed for data acquisition. Comparing with the existing methods that estimate the geometric parameters of highway and railway alignments such as straight-lines, circular curves or spiral curves individually, this study discusses how to extract the entire set of parameters of combined alignments simultaneously with an integrated estimation method. Two case studies were used to show the feasibility of the developed technique. The first example investigates the possibility for recovering the geometric parameters of expressway curves whilst the second experiment entails realignment of existing railway curves. The results show that the proposed method has the advantages of high accuracy in the estimation of highway and railway curve parameters, and of less track lining work comparing with the traditional method in railway track realignment.