Title: TRANSPORTATION MODELING APPLICATIONS IN A WINDOWS BASED GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Abstract: Geographic Information System (GIS) Technology has become a powerful and established tool for transportation modeling and planning applications. GIS offers spatial analysis features crucial to transportation engineering by associating data to actual locations on the earth's surface. Standard GIS software offers more robust analysis and display capabilities absent from traditional transportation planning packages. Standard GIS packages, however, were not written necessarily with the transportation engineer in mind. A GIS describes the world in terms of longitudes and latitudes and other projection systems consisting of a hierarchical structure of graphical objects. The typical GIS represents the world as a map. The concept of a network, fundamental to transportation modeling, is foreign to most GIS packages. Modeling packages describe the world mathematically in terms of a network consisting of nodes and links. What is needed is a methodology to relate this abstract representation to a more realistic portrayal of a transportation system which can be accomplished by establishing a bridge between GIS and modeling packages. With the advent of affordable, powerful, personal computers, powerful GIS technology has entered the desktop realm of computing. Windows provides an ideal environment for both the developer and end user of GIS technology. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) for a GIS makes it usable for the novice computer user. From a developer's viewpoint, the Windows environment provides the necessary tools and framework to introduce modeling concepts into a standard GIS. Standardized dialogs, output device drivers, and lines of communication through Dynamic Link Libraries, Dynamic Data Exchanges, and multitasking capabilities create an effective bridge which is transparent to the end user. This paper describes the interface of a Windows Based GIS, MapInfo for Windows, with a traditional modeling package, COMSIS MINUTP travel demand forecasting software. A framework was developed that enables communication between two distinct packages. Specific projects are presented which utilized these techniques to perform core planning and modeling functions within a GIS including thematic display of land use, origin-destination, and travel data; direct development of highway and transit networks on TIGER base maps; and display of assignment and other output from transportation models.
Publication Year: 1993
Publication Date: 1993-09-01
Language: en
Type: article
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