What is GIS-T?Beyond the State DOTs

Bruce Spear

Federal Highway Administration

Washington, DC

Current GIS Use in Transportation Agencies

• State DOTs– Over 95% have some operational GIS

capability– Most GIS applications focus on facility

management functions– Most GIS applications limited to data

visualization– Limited applications involving spatial or

network analysis

Current GIS Use in Transportation Agencies (continued)

• Metropolitan Planning Organizations– Over 50% have some operational GIS

capability– GIS initially used for public presentations– Growing GIS use in preparing data for

transportation planning models• Land Use

• Demographics & Employment

Current GIS Use in Transportation Agencies (continued)

• Public Transit Agencies– Under 20% have operational GIS capability– Few identified GIS applications

• Transportation Management Centers– GIS used principally for visualization and

public dissemination.– Very limited use of ITS data in operational

and planning analyses.

Barriers to GIS Use in Transportation Agencies

• Benefits not well articulated

• High costs for geo-spatial data development or conversion

• Competing non-GIS “legacy tools” (e.g., transportation planning models)

• Different “business application” requirements

Barriers to Data Sharing Among Transportation Agencies

• Benefits not well articulated

• No standard feature / attribute definitions

• Different accuracy / detail requirements

• Different application requirements for network database

• Incompatible formats for network data among “legacy tools”

So why bother?

• Atlanta “Benefits and Burdens” Study– Develop measures for EJ– Politically sensitive, significant impact on

new transportation projects in Atlanta– Used GIS to examine distribute of impacts

geographically, by demographic group– Difficult to integrate key data maintained by

different agencies: GDOT, ARC, MARTA

Promising Trends

• Some GIS software vendors addressing transportation business applications– ESRI – UNETRAN– Caliper – TransCAD

• Federal regulations putting increased emphasis on location specificity– HPMS reporting– Environmental Justice– Air Quality Conformity

Promising Trends (cont.)

• New transportation planning models require more accurate location data– NYMTC Best Practices Model– TRANSIMS

• Geo-spatial data becoming more accurate and accessible– GPS– Remote imagery– Interagency data sharing

Probable Future

• GIS use in transportation agencies will grow, principally as an “end user” tool.

• Increasing pressure to make geo-referenced transportation data accessible to the public.

• Data sharing among agencies will increase as barriers are overcome.

• Increased reliance on outside “experts” for more complex GIS analyses.