Role of Geographic

Information System (GIS) in

Traffic Engineering

Prepared Under Guidance of Prof Pritam Aitch

Presented by
Debasmita Roy Chowdhury
Roll No:001410401034
BCE IV 1st Semester
Department of Civil Engineering
Jadavpur University
 What is Geographic
Information System or GIS?
It is a system designed to
 capture,
 store,
 manipulate,
 analyze,
 manage, and
 present spatial or geographic data.
 What is Geographic
Information System or GIS?
 A GIS uses spatial location as the key
index variable.
 Spatial location is used to relate
seemingly unrelated information
 To find out patterns and trends
 That are not so obvious
 When information is trapped in charts
and spreadsheets
 What is Geographic
Information System or GIS?
Locations or extents in the Earth space–
time may be recorded as:
 dates/times of occurrence, and
 x, y, and z coordinates representing,
longitude, latitude, and elevation,
respectively.
All Earth-based spatial–temporal location and extent
references should be relatable to one another and ultimately to
a "real" physical location or extent. This key characteristic of
GIS has begun to open new avenues of scientific inquiry.
 The Link Between Traffic
Engineering and GIS
 Traffic Engineering aims to achieve a safe
and smooth flow of traffic
 Traffic is a parameter that changes with both
time and space
 Therefore both real-time and non-real-time
monitoring and analysis of traffic related
variables is required
 GIS with its capability to incorporate
techniques to analyze spatio-temporally
variable data serves as the perfect tool for
Traffic Engineering
 Applications of GIS in
Traffic Engineering
A few major applications presented here are:
 Road Network and Public Transportation Route Planning (during
preliminary design and for further management once in use)
 Fastest Route Planning (to save time during emergencies)
 Accident Hotspot Analysis
 Parking Demand Solution
 Traffic Induced Pollution Study and Control
 Traffic Rule Violation Reduction by realtime monitoring
 Tracking of Public Transport and Availability
 Toll Collection System Management
 Utility Location Identification
 Route Planning
No of trips required, distance involved

No of public transport vehicles required,

cost involved

Projected Demand in Future

Total Population, No of Households, Age of Population

Private Vehicle Ownership, Income Catagory

Percentage of Population with Disability

No of Employees

Current transit riders

People interested in Transit

 Route Planning

After planning of the route by considering the above

criteria, the implementation of the route involves:
 deciding the terminal points and stoppages for the
public transport. The boarding points should be
distributed according to the demand area densities
shown in the map.
 The effect of the boarding points on the existing traffic
flow should also be taken into account by using
realtime modelling and simulations.
 The next step after implementation of boarding points
is monitoring them. Every data regarding the boarding
point like the location id,the number of bays, the
passenger facilities provided are fed into the GIS for
further monitoring and analysis of performance.
 Finding out the Most Efficient
Route
Direct applications of finding out the most efficient route
to a particular destination are as follows:
 To find out the fastest route to a hospital or other utility
centers during an emergency
 To find out the most efficient delivery routes utilising
minimum number of vehicles and maximising number
of delivery and pick up points per vehicle
 On a daily basis,navigating the streets to reach a
destination on an app based cab service
 Finding out the Most Effcient Routes

 The basic principle of this problem lies in graph theory

 It states that the shortest path is the path between 2 vertices or
nodes in a graph such that the sum of the weights of its
constituent edges is minimized.
 We can imagine the road network as a graph with positive
weigths, and the nodes represent road junctions and each edge
of the graph is associated with a road segment between 2
junctions.
 The traffic equivalent of this problem is finding the shortest path
between 2 intersections on a road map each weighted by the
length of its road segment.
 The weight of an edge may also correspond to the time needed
to traverse the segment, or the cost of traversing the segment.
 Finding out the Most Efficient Route
 There are several standard algorithms to solve the above problem like:
Dijkstra's Algorithm, Bellman-Ford Algorithm, and more specialised
ones like The Travelling Salesman Problem.
 The problem with the direct usage of these is that they assume the
road network conditions to be static, whereas traffic and therefore the
weights of the routes, fluctuates with time.
 A traveller traversing a link daily may experience different travel times on
that link due not only to the fluctuations in travel demand ( origin-
destination matrix) but also due to such external factors like work
zones, bad weather, accidents, and vehicle breakdowns.
 As a result a stochastic time dependant modelling and solution is
more suited for optimisation of the shortest path problem in traffic.
Therefore the shortest route might not be the fastest.
 A GIS system with continous shared dataflow system that will collect
the changing traffic data at every point of time from the traffic signals
and detectors is required to update the constraints for the algorithm.
 The shortest path therefore needs to be modified with time and change
in traffic.
Finding out the Most Efficient Route
 Accident Data Verification and Hotspot
Analysis
 An accident hotspot may be loosely defined as a high density
accident zone.
 There are in built functions in GIS softwares to find out the
spatial autocorrelation between accident site locations.
 The Marvin's I method is used to find out whether the
accident locations in an area, in terms of distance, forms a
cluster pattern or a dispersed pattern or a random
pattern. It uses both feature locations and feature values
simultaneously.
 To quantize the spatial locations into clusters, K-means
clustering is a standard methods that is used. It aims to
partition n observations into k clusters in which each
observation belongs to the cluster with the nearest mean,
serving as a prototype of the cluster.
 Accident Data Verification and Hotspot
Analysis

 There is also the Kernel Density Estimation technique. A

symmetrical surface is placed over each point. Then the
distance from the point to a reference location is evaluated
based on a mathematical function and then the value is
summed for all the surfaces for that reference location. This
method is repeated for successive points. This therefore allows
us to place a kernel over each observation and summing these
individual kernels gives us the density estimate for the
distribution of accident points.
 The main advantage of this method lies in the determination of
the spread of risk of an accident. The spread of risk is defined
as defined as the area around a cluster where there is an
increased likelihood of occurrence of accident based on spatial
dependency.
 After determination of the clusters of hotspots, further analysis
can be made on causes of accident and measures taken based
to reduce the risk.
 Parking Demand and Supply Analysis

 Parking demand forms the link

between landuse and traffic
engineering
 Supply to meet the parking
demand can solve a majority
of transport problems including
congestion and travel time
reduction
 Major problem in analysis is
the variable nature of the
demand and the data
associated with it, which
requires detailed survey
 To meet the demand, supply
locations are allocated by GIS
softwares as per location-
allocation techniques and
Fig 5:Parking Demand and Supply Analysis models
 Parking Demand and Supply Analysis
 Location-allocation models aim to determine optimal locations
for facilities based on demand distribution. It minimizes the total
weighed distance or time in terms of demand locations and
weights.
 The models are developed with GIS technology because it
needs network analysis functions. The location allocation
problem has three basic components which are facility,
demand, and network space explained as follows:
 Facility is chosen such that when it will be analyzed to service
demand, it is the best in terms of distance and time. The
capacity of the facilities can be used for analyzing demand and
supply balance or for allocating demand weights.
 Demand is determined as a result of parking demand analysis.
Demand locations are identified with demand weights.
 Network space is the base data set on road network to calculate
distance or time cost between facilities and demands.
 The p-median model and the coverage models are the most
commonly used methods chosen for location-allocation
analysis.
Parking Demand and
Supply Analysis
 Monitoring and Reduction of Vehicular Air
Pollution
 Vehicles are one of the major sources of air pollution. They serve as
mobile sources which makes them difficult to monitor.
 Ways of tackling air pollution levels around the world, especially in
major cities involve creation of emission models and dispersion
models as well as stochastic models for prediction of air pollution
levels in future.
 The emission models inlcude ones like MOVES (MOtor Vehicles
Emission Simulator) developed by the USEPA. The various dispersion
models used in practice are developed considering Gaussian
dispersion of continuous, buoyant air pollution plumes.
 These models, together with geographic data like road maps and
meteorological data like windspeed can be combined to create
thematic maps which show the spatial distribution of pollution in
terms of specific pollutant concentration.
 If colour gradation is used, then the pollution levels could also be
indicated and a borderline created in terms of health hazards. These
type of 3D and 2D visualization of the problem can help the local
authorities understand the gravity of the extent of pollution and take
measures
Traffic Induced Air Pollution Control
Work Flow Model
 Conclusion
While these are all the scholarly uses of GIS,
the availability of maps in our smartphones
powered by GPS and GIS also make our day-
to-day lives easier. We use it on a daily basis
for the app-based cab service and public
transport tracking systems and navigation
systems. The synergy that GIS brings about in
modern application based sciences is
undeniable.
 References
 Anitha SD Selvasofia,Prince G Arulraj,2016 : Accident and Traffic Analysis using GIS

 Aydinoglu,Senbil,Saglam,Demir,2015 : Planning of Parking Places on Transportation Infrastructure by

Geographic Information Techniques

 Becky P.Y. Loo, 2006 : Validating Crash Locations for Quantitative Spatial Analysis: A GIS based Approach

 Derekenaris, Garofalakis, Makris, Prentzas, Sioutas, Tsakalidis, 2001 : Integrating GIS, GPS, GSM
Technologies for the effective management of ambulances

 Exhibitions India Group, 2016 : Smart Transportation – Trasforming Indian Cities

 Ford , Barr, Dawson, James, 2015 : Transport Accessibility Analysis Using GIS : Assessing Sustainable
Transport in London

 G. Wang, F.H.M. Van den Bosch, M Kuffer, 2008 : Modelling Urban Traffic Air Pollution Dispersion

 https://brilliant.org/wiki/dijkstras-short-path-finder/

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_density_estimation

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra%27s_algorithm

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-means_clustering

 Mohammed Aboussaedi, Rosmadi Fauzi, Rusnah Muhamad, 2016 : Geographic Information System (GIS)
Modelling Approach to Determine the Fastest Delivery Routes

 Tessa K. Anderson, 2009 : Kernel Density Estimation and K-means Clustering to Profile Road Accident
Hotspots

 Valley Metro, Presentation titled, 'Transit Planning and Route Optimisation through GIS'
Thank You