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Abstract
It is essential for local authorities and public transport service providers to carry out public transport surveys regularly. These assist in the collection of data for use in public transport planning. The South African government, recognising the importance of acquiring and maintaining such information, came up with a policy that makes it compulsory for every local authority to have a current public transport record. To collect data for the current public transport record, one of the most commonly used surveys is a ride check survey. In order to get more accurate data form these surveys, some local authorities have adopted the use of global positioning systems (GPS), for accurate position location and hand-held digital computers for electronic data recording. Since most of the local authorities already have their data in GISs and use GIS, it becomes imperative to be able to store this survey data in the GIS. However, the huge amounts of data collected need to be stored efficiently, by minimizing data redundancy. This paper focuses on the development of a data model to efficiently include ride check survey data into a GIS. Implementation of the data model is based on the object-relational database technique and the dynamic segmentation method.

1. Introduction
It is essential for local authorities and public transport service providers to carry out surveys on public transport usage regularly. The data collected from these surveys is instrumental in the planning and design of public transport facilities and in planning for future use of public transport (Macpherson 1993).

The methods of data collection have evolved from manual methods to electronic methods and at the same time many local authorities are adopting the use GIS for transport information management and service planning. With continuing advances in technology, the extent, accuracy and amount of collected data is limitless. The only challenge lies in trying to organise this data so that it fits in with the rest of the local authorities’ spatial and attribute data in the GIS and serves its intended purpose.

The objective of this paper is to investigate the representation of ride check survey data in a GIS. The next section provides an overview of how ride check surveys are conducted in Cape Town, South Africa. This will be followed by a discussion on how and why positioning systems and handheld digital computers have been adopted for use in these surveys. The rest of the paper then reports on the design and implementation of a suitable data model to include such data in a GIS.

2. Background
Recognising the importance of surveys to public transport service planning and information management, the government of South Africa has set up policies that make it compulsory for every local authority to maintain a current public transport record. This current public transport record should give an overview of the extent of public transport services and the availability and location of public transport facilities. It should also contain information on current public transport usage statistics and public transport users preferences and needs (Department of Transport 2001).

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