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GISoundBytes

This section summarizes major GIS activities at MTC in order to inform our partnership agencies and other organizations about opportunities for regional GIS coordination and data sharing. MTC GIS applications that include interactive mapping services are indicated with this icon: .

Regional Transit Information System (RTIS) & Regional Transit Database (RTD)

The Regional Transit Information System (RTIS) includes a number of projects designed to provide up-to-date transit information to the public and to MTC's transportation partners. At the heart of the RTIS is the Regional Transit Database (RTD) -- a spatially enabled relational database (Oracle/SDE) where current transit data is maintained. The RTD system design and open architecture make it easy to extract transit data for use in applications developed by MTC and its transit agency partners. Data in the RTD is used by MTC's Regional Transit Trip Planning applications to generate transit itineraries for transit call center operators and the general public. The RTD also supports MTC's transit information web site that provides schedule, fare, route and map information for all transit services in the region.

Regional Transit Trip Planning

Regional transit trip planning, one of MTC's first applications designed to use the RTIS and the RTD, is performed through call centers and over the Internet. Transit call center operators use the trip planning application to provide high quality, personalized, cross-jurisdictional and multi-modal information to the public over the telephone. Over the Internet, the general public can use the 511 Transit Trip Planner - MTC's Internet trip planning interface - to generate many itineraries or revise a single one many times to find the best transit solution. Users input where they are, where they want to go and when they want to get there; they do not need to be familiar with transit providers, routes or schedules. The 511 Transit Trip Planner supplies a customized itinerary and interactive map, based on user-specific variables, such as "fastest time" or "least amount of transfers."

Arterial Inventory Database

The arterial inventory database is a comprehensive traffic signal equipment and systems database for the Bay Area. The project's objective is to provide local jurisdictions with web-based access to the database linked to a GIS to assist their efforts to improve the operations and management of Bay Area arterials. Local agencies are responsible for all subsequent updates to the database. The password-protected data query and map interface (www.bayareatrafficsignals.org) requires Internet Explorer version 5.5 or higher.

Regional Transportation Plan (RTP)

MTC is responsible for creating the Regional Transportation Plan (RTP), which specifies the investments and strategies necessary for the maintenance, management and improvement of the transportation network in the nine-county Bay Area. For the 2001 RTP, GIS was used to map the proposed RTP improvements and analyze their environmental impacts. GIS will be used for future RTP mapping and analyses.

Transportation Improvement Program (TIP)

The Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) is a federally required document that sets forth MTC's investment priorities for transit and transit-related improvements, highways and roadways and other surface transportation improvements in the Bay Area. GIS is being used as a mapping and analysis tool that enables MTC staff to view project locations and analyze the allocation of TIP-related funds throughout the Bay Area. Tasks that have been accomplished include mapping a "snapshot" of all projects in the TIP and creating high-quality maps of TIP projects for MTC's annual legislative guides and other purposes. Current plans include putting interactive GIS maps of the TIP project locations on a publicly available web site, and instituting a system to continually update GIS information about the TIP.

Lifeline Transit and Welfare to Work Analyses

Lifeline transit provides vital mobility for those who are economically disadvantaged, transit dependent, or transitioning from welfare to work. In order to assist numerous stakeholders in identifying transportation related barriers for the Bay Area's low-income population and develop solutions for removing these barriers, MTC has created maps showing the home locations of welfare recipients and numerous essential destinations such as, potential job sites, licensed child care facilities, subsidized hous-ing sites, job training locations, major medical facilities, transit routes, and bus stops. The maps, which were used to understand how well the existing transit services serve the needs of the low-income population, have been very useful in illustrating overall transit accessibility as well as spatial and temporal gaps in the existing network.

Environmental Justice Analyses

GIS analyses and mapping supported the efforts of the Environmental Justice Advisory Group (EJAG) and provided tools for staff to analyze EJ issues and questions. Two steps were involved: (1) identifying "communities of concern" - areas with particular demographic characteristics that warrant special consideration during the RTP preparation - and (2) using GIS to depict changes between today's transportation network and that envisioned for 2025 by the 2001 RTP. PDF maps from the EJ analyses are listed in our Map Room.

Pavement Management System

MTC's Pavement Management System (PMS) is a computer-assisted decision-making process designed to help cities and counties prevent pavement problems through judicious maintenance, and to diagnose and repair those that exist in a timely, cost-effective manner. Through MTC's Pavement Technical Assistance Program (P-TAP), consultants have been creating linkages between various local jurisdictions' pavement data and GIS. MTC is investigating ways to leverage the P-TAP consultant contracts that involved GIS so that a regional GIS of pavement conditions can begin to be developed.

Regional Bicycle Master Plan

The Regional Bicycle Plan was adopted in December, 2001. The plan, which represents a year-long effort, defines a Regional Bicycle Network of “regionally significant” routes and facilities. The plan also recommends a set of activities for MTC and the region to pursue to meet the overall plan goal - to ensure that bicycling is a convenient, safe, and practical means of transportation for all Bay Area residents. GIS played a key role in identifying the Regional Bicycle Network and identifying gaps in the network. The gaps where identified and project costs developed. About 35% of the proposed network exists today. GIS is now being used to analyze the network in relation to data on bicycle collisions over the past decade, in order to guide future planning and funding decisions. PDF maps developed for the plan are listed in our Map Room.

Network Modeling and Analysis

In December of 2003, MTC released a GIS prospectus titled "Extended GIS Analysis for the Bay Area Travel Survey 2000 (BATS2000)" to the transportation research and academic communities outlining the need to use advanced GIS analysis methods to study regional household survey datasets. This prospectus provides a general direction for MTC GIS efforts towards building a multimodal network that can be used to study regional and sub-regional travel characteristics for both work and non-work travel patterns within the nine-county region.

In August of 2006, MTC released a research paper titled: "Adding Value to Travel Behaviour Surveys: The Network Analyst Approach" to the ESRI International Conference in San Diego that decribes the GIS tools and methods used to examine travel patterns as reported in the Bay Area Travel Survey conducted in 2000. This research paper addresses many of the advanced GIS analysis methods discussed in the previously released GIS prospectus: "Extended GIS Analysis for the Bay Area Travel Survey 2000 (BATS2000)".

Network Modeling and Analysis GIS Tools

The GIS tools (scripts and models) described in this report, as well as the powerpoint presentation given at the ESRI conference can be downloaded using the following links:

Research Paper: "Adding Value to Travel Behaviour Surveys: The Network Analyst Approach" (pdf)

Powerpoint Presentation: "ESRI UC 2006 Adding Value to Travel Behaviour Surveys" (powerpoint)

ArcGIS Scripts: "BATS2000_Scripts.zip" (zip archive)

Special Note:

The scripts contained in this zip archive require ArcGIS 9.1 with the Network Analyst, and Spatial Analyst extensions to run properly. Some knowledge of the use of python and vba scripts is required to run these properly. Also, these scripts are provided without input datasets. Therefore to run properly, users must first create the necessary input files for each script prior to running. Documentation is provided in the research paper: "Adding Value to Travel Behaviour Surveys: The Network Analyst Approach". Many of these scripts were adapted from source code provided by the ESRI Network Analyst Development team.

 

Other Uses of GIS at MTC

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