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Factors Affecting the Use of GIS in Urban Transportation Planning and Management Ata M. Khan Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Carleton University Canada Sarah J. Taylor Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Carleton University Canada Jennifer M. Armstrong Morrison Hershfield Limited Canada Abstract The objectives of this paper are to (1) describe the current status of factors that pave the way for increased use of GIS by cities, (2) report progress that has been made in the area of urban transportation planning and management, and (3) present implications for cities of developing countries. The paper consists of six parts. Part one introduces the factors that affect the adoption of GIS in urban transportation and management. Part two describes the requirement for knowledge of GIS. Technological developments are covered in part three. Observations on the cost of hardware, software and operations are presented in part four. Part five deals with organizational factors. Finally, in part six, conclusions are presented, including implications for cities of developing countries. Introduction Over the years, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been defined by many authors. For example, according to a recently developed website of the U.S. Federal Highway Administration (2004), a GIS " is a collection of computer software, hardware, data, and personnel used to store, manipulate, analyze, and present geographically referenced information ." A similar definition of GIS was provided a decade ago by Blin et al. (1993). They defined GIS as "a system of computer hardware, software, and procedures designed to support the compiling, storing, retrieving, analyzing, and display of spatially referenced data for addressing planning and management problems. In addition to these technical components, a complete GIS must also include a focus on people, organizations, and standards". The components of a GIS system intended for application in urban transportation planning and management, commonly referred to as GIS-T, include: technology (hardware, software), data capture & integration, users and their requirements, and finally institutions (Figure 1).  Figure 1: The components of a GIS system In order to achieve the full potential of GIS for solving complex planning and management problems, factors that affect the adoption and effective use of GIS in urban transportation have to be favourable. The concluding resolutions of the 1995 United Nations-sponsored International Seminar on Geographic Information Systems, City Sustainability and Environment, held in Cairo (Egypt), emphasized the study of factors that would pave the way for increased use of GIS by cities. The factors that affect the adoption of GIS in urban transportation planning and management include (Khan 1995, United Nations 1995):
 Figure 2: Factors Affecting the Use of GIS Knowledge of GIS The effective use of GIS technology requires the services of well-educated/trained people who are knowledgeable in spatial analysis and skilled in using GIS software. Four interrelated factors, if pursued, can yield satisfactory results:
Technological Development Although the use of computers in mapping and spatial analysis was initiated over 40 years ago, there has been much progress over the years both in technology, and diversity of applications. Technology and associated software have been developed so as to handle various forms of geographic data, such as transportation-related attribute data, raster data, line data, and area data. Attribute data are used to describe a spatial entity using both numeric data and text descriptions (e.g., land use characteristics or trip generation rates for a traffic analysis zone, etc.). Frequently, such data are stored in a tabular format (Blinn et al, 1993). Raster data include identifying features for various cells (e.g., river, warehouse, major shopping centre, etc.). Line data represent the shape of a linear geographic feature (e.g., roads). Area data represent polygons that enclose a homogenous unit (e.g., lakes, traffic analysis zones, etc.).
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