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Title:

Stretching Scarce Dollars Through Streamlined Processes and Partnerships: Prototype Implementation for a Unified, Intelligent, and Sustainable Geolocation Process for Roadway Incidents

Accession Number:

01515810

Record Type:

Component

Availability:

Transportation Research Board Business Office

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Abstract:

Geolocation, the process of accurately locating transportation related incidents such as crashes, citations and EMS runs on a map and associating those locations with the road network, is a complex, time-consuming, inefficient, error-prone and costly exercise. Although most Departments of Transportation (DOTs) have their statewide road networks in some form of Geographic Information System (GIS), superimposing location-based events on the road network for the purpose of improved engineering and safety, however, remains problematic because it is difficult to translate textual descriptions of a location into an accurate GIS point with appropriate associations to road network. Standardization of incident reports, electronic reporting software, and GPS and mobile devices have done little to improve the success rate of automated geolocation. This paper presents a model that turns the traditional translation from location description to GIS upside down with the goal of completely eliminating translation errors and the legions of geocoders needed to fix them, streamlining the process and redirecting resources to more productive uses. The authors propose to capture the GIS point first and derive the textual description of a location from it, resulting in significant cost savings in geolocation and a major leap in location data quality. The technology exists and can be demonstrated today. The primary barrier to adoption of this technology lies in the inability or reluctance to dismantle a legacy process that has evolved over decades and is parceled out in many pieces, with one that requires inter-agency collaboration, shared resources and a certain amount of altruistic behavior for the greater good.

Supplemental Notes:

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABJ60 Geographic Information Science and Applications.

Monograph Accession #:

01503729

Report/Paper Numbers:

14-3207

Language:

English

Corporate Authors:

Transportation Research Board

500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001 United States

Authors:

Bejleri, Ilir
Brown, Daniel

Pagination:

19p

Publication Date:

2014

Conference:

Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting

Location: Washington DC
Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
Sponsors: Transportation Research Board

Media Type:

Digital/other

Features:

Figures; References

Uncontrolled Terms:

Geolocation; Road networks

Subject Areas:

Administration and Management; Data and Information Technology; Finance; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I10: Economics and Administration; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Source Data:

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2014 Paper #14-3207

Files:

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Created Date:

Jan 27 2014 3:06PM