GIS-based visualization of integrated highway maintenance and construction planning: a case study of Fort Worth, Texas

Abstract

Abstract Background This paper reports on a case study of the use of visualization of geospatial data that is distributed across data sets and requires integration over time and space to aid decision makers. Like many State Highway Agencies (SHAs) in the United States, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is organized along the traditional functional lines of planning, design, construction, maintenance, and operations. It has historically relied on experience and longevity of its staff to efficiently and effectively plan its construction and maintenance projects. Although functional boundaries of maintenance and construction are fairly clearly defined, there tends to be some overlap in projects that can be executed by either of the functional groups. The department currently does not have a robust integrated information system for identifying potential planning conflicts between its construction and maintenance projects. This has led to suboptimal use of resources, including overlapping plans for maintenance and mobility enhancement projects. Case description With over 650 highway projects assigned across two functional groups within the district’s (TxDOT Fort Worth district) boundary, it is a challenging task to assemble a coherent plan for managing these projects over a multi-year planning period that is subject to external stakeholder input as well as shifting funding constraints. Temporal and spatial data needed for integrated planning resides in specialized information systems developed for the needs of individual functional groups. To address this challenge, this district decided to integrate and visualize data from individual information systems in a Geographic Information System (GIS). A GIS-based tool was developed to integrate, visualize, and analyze projects data from multiple information systems. Discussion and evaluation This paper documents the benefits associated with visualization and integration of projects data in a GIS to address planning challenges facing a typical highway agency. Among the lessons learned are the potential uses of GIS, which include detecting spatially and temporally overlapping projects, supporting integrated planning, and improving communication among functional groups within a state highway agency. Conclusion The study demonstrates that such spatial-temporal representations of project data can lead to early identification of potential overlaps during the planning phase. In a broader context, such geospatial visualization efforts can also form the basis for eliciting practitioners’ perspectives and knowledge input in the development of spatial decision support systems.