| Transportation systems are complex entities that are owned and operated by a diverse group of organizations. The management of such systems requires substantial amounts of data to be monitored, acquired, managed, analyzed, maintained and modeled. Due to the spatial and temporal nature of such data, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) technologies offer significant promise to help with such activities. The focus of this dissertation is to develop a GIS based decision support system to help manage transportation systems. The purpose of the study is to develop a system, which compiles, pre-processes, and manages various transportation system related data including near real time transfer of data. This involves the development of a system architecture, and identification and integration of software and hardware elements. The system utilizes commercial off-the-shelf software and hardware, along with customized interfaces. The system is then evaluated using a pilot study. The pilot study includes components to facilitate data collection and analyses, as well as mechanism to disseminate the results of the analyses. The outcome of the dissertation is a system that utilizes GIS and GPS technologies to manage transportation related databases in real-time, and a demonstration of its use. |
