Developing geographic information systems platforms for multijurisdictional transportation analyses: framework and techniques for spatial data sharing

Geographic information systems (GISs) have been presented as a powerful analysing tool for civil engineers to help their decision-making processes. Building GIS platforms for transportation analysis involving multiple jurisdictions has been challenging, however, because of the complexity and difficulty associated with conducting data sharing and ensuring spatial data interoperability among GISs for transportation (GIS-T) data sets. In the context of western Canadian urban and rural areas, this paper investigates the issues related to GIS-T data sharing, establishes a conceptual framework, develops techniques supporting the framework by solving recurring data-sharing problems, and constructs a number of GIS-T platforms facilitating comprehensive multijurisdictional transportation analyses. In addition, based on the knowledge gained through solving real-world problems, the authors propose an open GIS-T platform consisting of a series of customized base maps, each being tailored to suit the needs of individual application and, as a whole, linked together by interoperability to better support transportation applications.