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GIS based Road Information and Management System: A decision support tool for Public Works Department, Government of Maharashtra
3. System Overview
The interface of the system is user friendly and interactive. It holds the spatial data layers dynamically linked to the attribute data, organized according to different administrative hierarchies. 3.1 Data Organization The state of Maharashtra comprises thirty-four districts organized into six PWD regions. To map to existing organizational hierarchy of PWD, the customization of the GIS interface has been done region-wise. The interface for one region includes the details of all the districts and the talukas that come under its jurisdiction. For six different PWD regions there are six different customized GIS applications. In each application, there is a hierarchy of views, i.e., State View, Region View, District Views and Taluka Views. Each View is an interactive map that contains several themes including categorized roads, dynamically segmented roads, village points, administrative boundaries, etc. A view can be opened independently and the users can then explore, query and analyze the road data represented by it. The major roads, which include Expressway, National Highway, Major State Highway, State Highway and Major District Roads, have been subjected to dynamic segmentation at an interval of one kilometre. Then, for each one-kilometre segment of the road, around eighty attributes have been attached. 3.2 Customized GIS Interface An intuitive and user friendly GUI (Graphical User Interface) with customized tools and buttons makes it possible to perform special tasks in addition to the built-in tools and buttons of the Arc View GIS. "Latitude-longitude reader", "Length reader", "Print map" are a few examples of the customized tools and buttons that have been created. Customized queries enable the user to generate complex queries from attribute database and display its results on the map along with the textual reports. Over forty customized queries have been incorporated into the system by means of easy-to-pick drop down menus. "Show the connected villages with population 'X-range from 'Y' road" (Fig. 1), "Show the constructions along the 'X' road" (Fig. 2), "Show and report the segments of 'X' road in good condition", "Show all the roads with 'X' Base Type", are some of the customized queries. Queries of this sort are possible at all levels of the administrative hierarchy like Taluka level, District level, Region level etc.  Fig. 1 : Report of villages having population above 1500, connected to an all-weather road  Fig. 2 : Report depicting the location of minor bridges along the roads of Baramati taluka The network analysis functionality incorporated in the system equips the user to render route optimization, closest facility analysis and resource allocation. |