GIS Applications in Urban Roadway Management Systems

Hudson, W. R.; Zhang, Zhanmin; Dossey, Terry; ,

GIS Applications in Urban Roadway Management Systems

by W. R. Hudson, Univ of Texas, Austin, United States,
Zhanmin Zhang, Univ of Texas, Austin, United States,
Terry Dossey, Univ of Texas, Austin, United States,

Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Computing in Civil and Building Engineering

Abstract:

The urban roadway network is a major component of any municipal infrastructure system. Effective management with systems methodology can greatly increase the service life of these facilities and reduce user operation costs (Haas & Hudson 82). To achieve such an objective, many municipal transportation agencies in the United States have operational Pavement Management Systems (PMS) in one form or another. As a further development and improvement of the management technology for transportation systems, many transportation agencies are currently investigating the adopting of geographic information systems (GIS) to transportation (Haas & Hudson 92, O'Neill 90). Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are computerized data base management systems with unique capabilities of managing and manipulating spatially referenced data and presenting it in an easily understood graphical format. To evaluate the potential applications of GIS in an urban roadway management system (URMS), efforts under this research included: 1) a conceptual evaluation of GIS technology; 2) a review and comparison of available GIS software; 3) identification of digital geographic data for urban areas; 4) development of a pilot application; and 5) conclusions and recommendations for implementing this technology in urban areas for pavement and infrastructure management. The development process of pilot GIS-URMS demonstrated that GIS is a powerful and flexible tool for integrating geographical location information with attribute data for pavement and infrastructure management, and for graphical display.

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