Abstract
Sharing spatial information between a transportation planning software (like EMME/2) and a GIS (like ArcInfo) is a complicated task, both in terms of data structure and informational needs.INRO Consultants established guidelines to standardize the creation of a transportation planning coverage and developed a set of tools to transfer information between EMME/2 and ArcInfo.
In this paper, we identify the motivation for the development of a data exchange procedure between ArcInfo and EMME/2. Then we identify the corresponding data items in ArcInfo and EMME/2, discuss the communication process for exchanging data and computed results between the two systems, and develop a user-friendly interface to realize the data exchange. As a concrete example, we present a prototype of the system for the EMME/2 road and transit network, which can be used to display the attributes and results obtained in EMME/2. Future developments and possible applications of this system are discussed as well.
A) Motivation
GIS software packages are used mainly as a tool for managing spatial information and performing associated computations. They have good database management features and boast effective manipulation and representation of spatial data.Unfortunately, for the purposes of transportation planning, they offer a limited set of tools. The transportation planner deals with an aggregate representation of networks (current and future) and wants to compare different scenarios in order to make a recommendation. This information cannot be obtained from a typical GIS. To assist the planner in more complex and specific tasks other software packages, like EMME/2, offer a working environment that incorporates some spatial data manipulation features and, above all, provide strong network assignment and demand modeling capabilities.
Since much effort is usual
