Moving Toward Spatiotemporal GIS for Transportation Applications

Author: Shih-Lung Shaw
Organization: University of Tennessee

408 G & G Building
Knoxville, TN 37996-1420
USA

Phone: (423) 974-6036
Fax: (423) 974-6025
sshaw@utk.edu

Geographic information systems are widely used at state DOTs and MPOs in support of inventory, maintenance, analysis, and display of spatially referenced data. However, another important dimension of the data--the temporal dimension--is often ignored or at best treated as snapshots. Almost all transportation projects involve data related to the interactions between space and time. For example, DOTs need to analyze traffic accident data at different locations along a highway over a time period or simulate traffic flows at different locations in a city at different times in a day. Spatiotemporal GIS will be able to support the above needs with better tools to query, analyze, and display spatiotemporal data. This paper demonstrates some strategies of developing spatiotemporal GIS databases using ArcInfo and ArcView GIS on travel survey data sets and roadway characteristics inventory data collected by Florida DOT.