DATA ATTRIBUTION AND NETWORK REPRESENTATION ISSUES IN GIS AND TRANSPORTATION

Geographic Information System (GIS) is an ''intelligent'' technology w hich integrates attribute data and spatial features and manages the re lationship between them. GIS is widely used in many activities, but it s application in transportation is less common. The extension of GIS i nto transportation (GIS-T) offers the potential to integrate transport ation data into GIS. The integration of transportation data in GIS fac es a number of barriers that are discussed in the paper. These barrier s can be broadly categorized into data attribution and network represe ntation issues. This paper analyzes these issues and reviews the poten tial for overcoming these constraints with current GIS technology. A f ully developed GIS-T has to meet many diverse needs including transpor tation inventory, modeling and operational problems. If GIS is to succ eed as a transportation technology, it must be capable of integrating different levels of network representation and data attribution and ha ve the ability to link with other transportation technologies.