United States Department of Transportation
ROSA P serves as an archival repository of USDOT-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by USDOT or funded partners.
As a repository, ROSA P retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
i
Current Use of Geographic Information Systems in Transit Planning: Final Report
-
1991-08-01
[PDF-3.70 MB]
Details:
-
Creators:
-
Corporate Creators:
-
Corporate Contributors:
-
Subject/TRT Terms:
-
Publication/ Report Number:
-
DOI:
-
Resource Type:
-
Geographical Coverage:
-
Corporate Publisher:
-
Abstract:The advent of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has facilitated the integration of data with geographic elements to perform analysis in a variety of disciplines, including transportation. The unique ability of GIS to handle complex spatial relationships makes it a natural tool to use in the planning and analysis of transportation systems, specifically public transportation systems. The purpose of this report is to identify the current use of GIS technology in public transit agencies and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) for transportation planning and analysis. A total of 74 telephone interviews were conducted with 67 organizations across 30 states — 46 transit agencies (including both operators and oversight agencies), and 21 MPOs. Of the transit agencies and MPOs contacted, most were located in the 30 largest metropolitan areas in the United States (based on the 1990 Census). However, several small transit agencies (having less than 50 buses) and MPOs were contacted to provide a broader view of GIS use in transit planning practice. The results of this investigation show that GIS is currently being used or being implemented for a wide variety of applications, in a wide variety of organizational settings, and for a wide variety of reasons. The implementation of GIS for transit is driven primarily by two factors; budgets and the need to integrate data from several sources in order to perform comprehensive analyses . The selection of GIS software is driven more by the "word-of-mouth" reputation of the software than by the ability of the software to perform transportation analyses. Another significant issue covered in this report is spatial data, specifically the types and sources of data being used. It is clear from this investigation that once data is obtained, there is a significant "clean-up" activity that has to take place before the data is fully usable. Also, data maintenance and integrity issues are beginning to emerge in the use of GIS. The future of GIS in transit is promising. Many of the organizations contacted have plans for introducing or expanding their GIS capabilities to perform many planning activities, including ridership forecasting, service planning, market analysis, real estate management, scheduling and dispatching. Based on this investigation, four major conclusions can be drawn. First, the relationship between GIS and transit planning may not be as clearly understood as the definition of GIS by the agencies interviewed. Second, the selection of GIS software to perform transit planning functions seems to be based on the following factors: funding, resources, compatibility with other local organizations, and capability to perform transit planning functions. Third, given the importance of using spatial data in GIS, and given the inconsistent nature of this data, several data processes should be closely examined before software implementation. Fourth, the information currently available on GIS software comes from the vendors. Thus, a more objective evaluation of functionality is needed, specifically oriented toward transit applications.
-
Format:
-
Collection(s):
-
Main Document Checksum:
-
Download URL:
-
File Type:
