Traffic Engineering And Gis

Q: I work in Traffic Engineering for a local County government agency. I have been asked to study and justify a reason for our department to invest time and money for a GIS system. Is there anyone who may be familiar with a traffic engineering divisional operation and associated departments, that may be able to help me with some directions that GIS may be beneficial to my division.

A: - First, I would like to point out that GIS is mostly for sharing of information. In your department, you are probably all ready using CADD so the implementation of GIS would only be necessary if you needed to share your data with other departments or the public or visa-versa that you needed other departments data. Having worked on three startup GIS's it is of the utmost importance to define the function of the GIS before you jump in.. Pertaining to other Traffic Engineering departments it would depend on the size of your county. I know that Fulton County Georgia is using GIS in traffic engineering but that is Atlanta. If you would like more help you will need to provide more information or we could fill reams of postings with non-useful data. -This is an unusually narrow application of the idea of GIS. For a traffic engineer, an obvious set of uses of GIS technology includes: -traffic network simulation -trip generation and distribution analysis -facilities management (pavement, signs, signals, lighting) -general dispatch support -emergency services routing / response calculation - tentative assignment -traffic management (congestion tracking, diversion) -emergency evacuation planning -alternative testing for proposed facilities -impact assessment of new land development proposals on existing and proposed transportation networks. -bus route support (planning and real time tracking) -truck route and hazmat assignment -preparation and dissemination of information (mapping, on-line location, etc.) -preparation of notifications to adjacent (buffered) occupants and owners of property and facilities -liaison with utilities (over and underground physical plant that crosses, is in or near the roadways and/or rights of way.)

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