GIS TRANSIT NETWORK CODING SYSTEM

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GIS TRANSIT NETWORK CODING SYSTEM
(TRANCOS)
2nd National GIS in Transit Conference Tampa,
Florida May 16 - 18, 1999
Gustavo A. Baez Jingke Chen Chunxi Chi
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• Background
• North Central Texas Council of Governments
  (NCTCOG), MPO for the Dallas - Fort Worth Region
• Responsible for the Regional Transportation
  Planning process for all modes of transportation
• Main Projects
• Metropolitan Transportation Plan (MTP)
• Major Investment Studies (MIS)
• Thoroughfare Plans, etc.

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• Background (continue)
• MTP and MIS require evaluation of multiple
  highway and transit alternatives
• Highway and transit alternatives are evaluated
  using the Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Travel Model
  (DFWRTM)
• Until 1998 transit network alternatives were
  coded using a pencil and paper process
• TRANCOS , an ARCVIEW GIS application was
  developed to code Transit Network.

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• Drawbacks of traditional transit network coding
• Time-consuming
• No geographic elements
• Impossible to do spatial analysis
• Prone to errors

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• Issues
• Development Environment
• ArcView
• Avenue, Dialog Designer, C
• Data Heritage
• Data Retrieval
• Data Integrity
• Interfacing with Dallas Fort Worth Regional
  Travel Model across multiple data formats

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• Final Structure
• It runs on PC environment
• It contains
• 10 dialog forms
• Over 100 Avenue scripts
• 5 C programs
• Developed by NCTCOG Personnel

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• Data and Control Flow Diagram

INPUT TRANFILE CARDS (DFRTM)
Import tool
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Output Tranfile Cards (DFWRTM)
Export Tool
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• What is a TRANFILE?
• It is Transit File which require 3 records types
  for every transit line
• Record 1 contains the following attributes Mode,
  Line Number, Line Description, Direction, Line
  Group, Technology Code, Company Code, Time
  Periods, Headways, Layover, and Vehicles Per Unit

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RECORD 1 2
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• Record 2 contains Mode, Line Number, Number of
  Segments, Basic Segment Definitions, Special
  Segment Definitions
• Record 3 contains Mode, Line Number, Segment
  Number, Node Numbers (Stops)

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RECORD 3
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TRANFILE EXAMPLE
Record 1
Record 2
Record 3
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• Main Tools
• .
• The menu contains the following options
• Import from Tranfile
• Export to Tranfile
• Export to Drive File
• Edit Tranfile Cards
• Edit Drive Nodes
• Ability to do Spatial Analysis

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MAIN MENU
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Import and Export Tools
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TRANSIT NETWORK (AS NODES)
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TRANSIT NETWORK (AS LINKS)
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IMPORTED RECORDS
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Editing Cards Tools
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Editing Cards Tools
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Ability to Edit Link and Node Tables
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Ability to Do Spatial Analysis
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• Benefits
• Greatly improved efficiency
• On screen visualization
• Easy to spot coding errors
• Easy for spatial analysis in transit alternative
  studies
• Transit network becomes integral part of GIS
  database
• Reduce level of frustration

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• Lessons Learned
• Support from managers and users is critical to
  success.
• A detailed work plan is very important to guide
  the process of the application development
• Documentation, documentation, documentation,
  !!!!

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QUESTIONS?