Integrating geographic information system technology with transportation planning

The objective of this research is to explore the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology in urban transportation planning. A GIS is an information system like most others except that it depends on data that is geographically or spatially based. A GIS is also a spatial database integrator because there are many ways to describe geographic references.;The strengths and weaknesses of GIS and transportation modelling are each examined. GIS are excellent tools for the analysis of spatial information, however, there is only one commercially available GIS that includes transportation modelling functionality. There are also many transportation modelling packages available commercially. However, these do not incorporate many GIS type features.;In this research, the GIS is used with the planning package in two specific ways: (1) to build the digital transportation network that will be used for the planning package; and (2) to display results from the modelling exercise in a form that is readily understood by the user. This research then develops the graphic link between a GIS and a transportation modelling package.;A commercially available transportation modelling package and a commercially available GIS were used to test the concepts developed in this research. Although the routines developed for these two packages contain commands specific to the packages involved, the methodology is general and can be applied to other transportation modelling packages and GIS.;Through the course of this research, it was found that it is possible to integrate GIS with transportation modelling using the methodology set out in this thesis. The use of a GIS integrated with a transportation modelling package has two primary advantages: (1) it is possible to make use of existing digital data; and (2) the GIS can greatly enhance the depiction of results. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).