INTEGRATION OF GIS COMPONENTS IN URBAN
MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS
Liliana Dobrica, Traian Ionescu
Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers, University Politehnica of Bucharest
Spl. Independentei 313, Bucharest, Romania
Elena Sofia Colesca
Faculty of Public Administration, Academy of Economic Studies, Piata Romana, Bucharest, Romania
Keywords: Information systems, GIS, Urban management, Analysis, Components, Reusability.
Abstract: This article describes the main functionality that can be included in GIS-based subsystems to be integrated
in urban management applications. Our contribution is the description for the first time at the conceptual
level of several GIS –based components identified in existent solutions to problems required by the needs of
integrated urban management and increased urban quality of life. Analysis of these solutions provides a
considerable potential to reduce development difficulties since it makes possible for less experienced
software architects and analysts to reuse knowledge that has been tested and validated previously.
1 INTRODUCTION
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are used in
various domains such as natural environment,
transportation, public administration, and others. On
each of these it is indispensable to create a
conceptual architecture for a given problem so that
the application requirements can be related to a
determined one. The concerned area within the
urban management is the city, which is shaped by its
own natural and built environment. It has road
routes, constructions, open areas, climate,
vegetation, population, and others. A city is a
dynamic, living body where deep differences exist
and need to be managed on behalf of its population’s
quality of life (Longley et al., 2001). Traditional
representation systems, as the maps, are static even
if made by a computer (CAD systems) because they
represent the situation in the time they were
produced. A GIS can generate dynamic maps
keeping the reality evolution record from data
collected in administrative tasks. To do so,
management needs to see the city as a whole, putting
aside its different visions and actions over the city. It
is unique and sensitive to time changes (Johannesson
and Wohed, 1999).Urban management has grown
interest into GIS use due to the needs of integrated
city management and to increase urban quality of
life. However, the first challenge is getting human
resources with technical skills to design, implement
and maintain systems using GIS technology
(Crisman, 1997). This is even more serious with
users. Even an expert user usually faces significant
difficulties using GIS tools. (Maziero et al., 2006).
In the development of quality-based software
architectures with concerns regarding integration
into domain and reusability the first observed feature
is the great potential to reuse previous solutions
(Dobrica and Colesca, 2007) (Dobrica and Ionescu,
2000). In urban management application domain the
reuse solutions may be either from different
departments inside the same administration, or even
from different administrations (Dobrica, 2007).
Analysis of these solutions provides a considerable
potential to reduce these difficulties since it makes
possible for less experienced software architects and
analysts to reuse knowledge that has been tested and
validated previously. In urban management the basic
environment that compose the digital cartographic
base may be reused by several applications.
GIS applications have some special
requirements, but they must be developed using the
same processes as any other information system
(Lisboa et al, 1999, 2002) (Brisaboa et al., 2007).
75
Dobrica L., Ionescu T. and Colesca S. (2009).
INTEGRATION OF GIS COMPONENTS IN URBAN MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS.
In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Software and Data Technologies, pages 75-78
DOI: 10.5220/0002260200750078
Copyright
c
SciTePress
One of the many processes that are receiving
attention is the use of a domain knowledge base that
allow software components reuse, which is mainly
the domain analysis community.
This paper analyzes several solutions applicable
to requirement analysis and conceptual architecture
modelling stages. Section 2 presents GIS technology
concerns in the context of urban management
application domain. Section 3 presents and analysis
solutions of GIS components integrated in urban
management information systems. Five solutions are
described and analyzed based on a comparison
framework. They were identified by researching in
the literature of the urban management applications
domains. Section 4 is a discussion regarding the
development and execution environments. It
presents possible criteria to be considered when
these environments must be decided. The last
section concludes with the main contributions and
the perspectives over future work.
2 GIS IN URBAN MANAGEMENT
A geographic information system (GIS) is a
technological tool for comprehending geography and
making intelligent decisions.
Figure 1: A map document of a Romanian city with
several data layers.
GIS organizes geographic data so that a person
reading a map can select data necessary for a
specific project or task (Figure 1). A thematic map
has a table of contents that allows the reader to add
layers of information to a basemap of real-world
locations. With an ability to combine a variety of
datasets in an infinite number of ways, GIS is a
useful tool for nearly every field of knowledge. GIS
maps are interactive. On the computer screen, map
users can scan a GIS map in any direction, zoom in
or out, and change the nature of the information
contained in the map. They can choose whether to
see the roads, how many roads to see, and how roads
should be depicted. Then they can select what other
items they wish to view alongside these roads such
as gas lines, rare plants, or hospitals. Some GIS
programs are designed to perform complex
calculations for tracking storms or predicting erosion
patterns. GIS applications can be embedded into
common activities such as verifying an address.
Implementing a complex computer system in a
large organization is challenging. Ensuring that each
work process is clearly understood and modelled
accurately requires a lot of time and attention.
Complex implementations often get delayed and
sometimes completely stalled from lack of industry,
product, and system experience. Several methods are
considered to ensure success when implementing
new business systems. Among the most important
works we can mention the efforts of the Open
Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and ISO standards in
defining software components to be reusable in
many GIS applications (ISO/IEC 19101, 2002)
(ISO/IEC 19107, 2003).
3 COMPONENTS AND URBAN
APPLICATIONS
This section is a description of reusable solutions
that could be considered for GIS-based technology
subsystems for urban management.
3.1 Work Order Management
In order to design this subsystem an important factor
to consider is the decomposition in units of the
organization of the public department. The
components of the subsystem are: Concrete
Operations Component, Alley Lighting Component,
Streets Inspection Component and Streets Repairing
Component. The last mentioned component has been
conceptually obtained by extending functional
features of the Concrete Operations Component.
3.2 GIS for a Development City
The functionality of this subsystem is customized for
searching for parcels, closest hydrants, plans, streets,
and engineering drawings; viewing sale deeds and
drawings; report generation; and creating mail-
merged letters for notification. The application
consists of four main components. Component for
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Municipal Officials is obtained through a
customization of the application framework that is
provided by the integrated development platform.
The customization must satisfy the requirements of
municipal officials. Component for public access
consists of Web sites for public access. Component
for emergency management services is design based
on the component libraries provided by the
integrated development platform. The Fire
Inspection Component implements the logic of an
user interface that lets fire inspectors without any
GIS training or experience easily add data.
3.3 Management of the Natural
Resources
The management of the natural resources requires
maintenance, protection, and replacement of trees
(ESRI, 2006). Also it requires the identification of
hazards, such as dead branches that overhang
parking spots, streets, or sidewalks, and the remedy
of these hazards in a timely manner before they
cause injury or damage to property. Examples of
hazard identification are locations where tree roots
are lifting sidewalks and driveways, situation
especially important to the elderly. Mainly the GIS
Subsystem for Urban Management performs a
detailed and comprehensive street trees inventory.
The inventory tracks data regarding species, size,
location, and tree condition. It is important that this
information must be easily accessible for managing
the maintenance priorities of the tree crews.
3.4 Analysis of Urban Traffic
A GIS-based traffic analysis subsystem may produce
spatially oriented diagrams of accidents where they
happened, whether at intersections or midblock.
Midblock accidents are accidents that occur between
intersections. In order to provide such a capability
this subsystem must query a database for all the
accidents that have occurred at a selected
intersection or midblock location. The data stored in
the database contains all the characteristics of an
accident, including accident type, vehicle direction
of travel, street names, vehicle manoeuvres, and so
on. The subsystem analyzes each accident and
places it in the appropriate location on the map. The
map view can include any additional features that
the analysts want to evaluate. These features might
include edge of pavement, road centerlines, or signs.
An urban traffic analysis subsystem help to improve
the safety of the citizens and the function of the city
roads by providing an accurate diagram of the places
where these occur and by identifying factors that
contribute to their occurrence.
3.5 Workflows and Data Management
A new organizational strategy moves geographic
information system (GIS) functionality away from
desktop software and onto the Web (Colesca and
Dobrica, 2008)(ESRI, 2007). This makes the
management of updates and adjustments to the GIS
easier. Four components are considered. These are
Inspector Activity List Component, Public Works
Management Component, Thematic Map Generator
Component, and Mailing Address Report
Component. Public Works Management Component
is obtained by generalizing Gas Valve Maintenance
Component. Thematic Map Generator Component
provides a Web accessible user interface. The first
two components give access to property and utility
data, respectively. The third component creates real-
time maps of utility assets, and the last on is used to
notify residents of upcoming construction.
4 DISCUSSIONS
The selection of the development environment for
the GIS-based subsystems depends on the
achievement of the following important
technological constraints: (1) it should allow the
integration of the current Web practices into the
components of the GIS subsystem; (2) it should
provide access to a library that enables the creation
of a customized GIS component that solves
problems; (3) it should provide users the ability to
manage map layouts so they can control and
manipulate maps effectively. Also the integrated
development platform is established such that it
allows seamless integration and interoperability with
various database technologies.
Execution environment selection is another issue
of concern. A decision regarding this must consider
the reuse of existent assets of the current information
system of the organization (for example, the reuse of
the data server that contains databases of other
applications). Execution environment selection may
consider a mobile one (laptops, PDAs) and wireless
communication solutions. Some of GIS components
are designed to provide Web access to the city
citizens that can use them for various services such
as information retrieval or to send requests regarding
public domain quality usage. Subsystems that
integrate GIS-based technology often require a
INTEGRATION OF GIS COMPONENTS IN URBAN MANAGEMENT APPLICATIONS
77
higher level experienced personal. Under this
circumstances training activities must be planned.
Data models for urban management applications
are customized based on a general model. All data
are stored in the relational database. So, the data
transfer among standalone software applications can
be realized directly through database connections.
Since the relational database supports relationships
between its tables, feature-to-feature spatial
connections can be set up among the GIS data layers
together with linking and joining of external data
tables
5 CONCLUSIONS
In urban management information systems there is a
high potential of reuse of solutions that have been
applied with success in other departments of the
same organization or other cities. One particular
property of GIS subsystems is that usually the data
handled by these subsystems have a strong
relationship among each other, because they
describe geographic phenomena about one specific
geographic region. The data type set that usually
creates the geographic data for one GIS subsystem
has a conceptual structure alike other GIS
subsystems. This particular property makes GIS
subsystems strong candidates to benefit from reuse
of existing designs.
Our study has an immense potential to improve
municipal management applications using GIS, as
well as reduce time and therefore costs in stages
such as requirement analysis and software
architecture conceptual modelling. However, for this
approach’s success it is necessary to create a
cooperation culture among researchers and system
developers. Reusability of a good and practical
documented solution is a very attractive and useful
idea. A good solution doesn’t need to be original and
innovative, but much important is that this solution
should be a tested and validated one for well known
problems. In urban management applications
domain there are no unique problem solutions.
Knowing the best practices that have been a success
for other cities is an advantage.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is partially supported by the Romanian
research grant CNCSIS IDEI no. 1238/2008.
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