Gis App 8

Transport or transportation is the movement of people and goods from one place to another. The term is derived from the Latin trans ("across") and portare ("to carry"). Aspects of transport The field of transport has several aspects: loosely they can be divided into a triad of infrastructure, vehicles, and operations. Infrastructure includes the transport networks (roads, railways, airways, waterways, canals, pipelines, etc.) that are used, as well as the nodes or terminals (such as airports, railway stations, bus stations and seaports). The vehicles generally ride on the networks, such as automobiles, bicycles, buses, trains, aircrafts. The operations deal with the way the vehicles are operated on the network and the procedures set for this purpose including the legal environment (Laws, Codes, Regulations, etc.) Policies, such as how to finance the system (for example, the use of tolls or gasoline taxes) may be considered part of the operations Broadly speaking, the design of networks are the domain of civil engineering and urban planning, the design of vehicles of mechanical engineering and specialized subfields such as nautical engineering and aerospace engineering, and the operations are usually specialized, though might appropriately belong to operations research or systems engineering Highway Features and Characteristics Using Remote Sensing, Mobile Mapping, GIS, GPS Remote sensing technologies have been increasingly used in transportation applications in recent years. The key driving forces in the use of these technologies include the increasing data acquisition speed and decreasing cost, the rapid advancement of softcopy image processing technology, and the ever growing demands for more accurate, comprehensive, and updated data. Digital cameras and various types of digital scanning devices play a key role in reducing the cost and the time for data acquisition. Technologies for rapid geo-referencing for remote sensors also contribute significantly to cost reduction and speed increases. In particular, the combined use of Global Position Systems (GPS) and Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) makes automatic image orientation possible, a task that is traditionally realized through the use of extensive field control points. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), through its Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA), has encouraged increased usage and application of technology to the highway inventory process. As part of this effort, RSPA promoted and funded a program to study remote sensing applications for the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) Roadway Characteristics Inventory (RCI) activities. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Center for Transportation Analysis partnered with the FDOT for this project for a feasibility study regarding Highway Feature and Characteristics Database Development using Commercial Remote Sensing Technologies, combined with Mobile Mapping, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS).

The specific objectives of the project include the following: 1. Implement integrated remote sensing solutions to develop an accurate and comprehensive Roadway Characteristics Inventory for selected study road sections meeting Florida DOT’s production requirements. 2. Assess the practical applicability of the proposed technologies with respect to their effectiveness, accuracy, fitness, and ease of implementation. 3. Document the commercial remote sensing products, implementation procedures, and technical approaches used in the project. 4. Recommend future project activities and feedback to the research and industry communities for technological enhancement. By design, “The Highway Features and Characteristics Database Development Using Commercial Remote Sensing, Mobile Mapping, GIS and GPS Project” is limited to the development of data for the FDOT’s RCI database, as contrasted to other types of data such as traffic flow information. State DOT data requirements vary from state to state, so a list of features of interest to FDOT Planning was identified. In addition, the project is limited to technologies generally available to the Department that could be rationally implemented rather than exotic applications requiring excessive equipment or personnel costs. The following techniques were chosen for examination: • • • • •

Aerial Photography Satellite Imagery Video Logging Mobile Mapping Field Data Collection

Although remote sensing, mobile mapping and GPS have been separately utilized for transportation data collection, an integrated approach applied to a detailed roadway and roadway feature database development has not been fully investigated. The project provided an operational test of such an integrated approach. This test allowed the researchers : (a) to draw some basic conclusions about the feasibility of the integrated use of remote sensing, mobile mapping, GIS and GPS technologies for the purpose of infrastructure database development, and (b) to assess and compare the functionality of these technologies and their applicability in real world applications.