Migration of Map Objects/Avenue-based Application

To an ArcGIS Environment for Transportation Planning

Background and Objectives

The client company is a recognized leader in urban planning domain with expertise ranging from land use and transportation planning to waste water recycling.

The Client's flagship product for planning support - INDEX, helps stake holders/decision makers to create and implement plans and further provides indicators to achieve and update set goals.
The first version of INDEX was developed on Avenue and VB/Map Objects. The main objective of the project was to migrate INDEX to ArcGIS as the existing environment lacked scalability and flexibility. ArcObjects, the script used for Arc GIS is built using Microsoft's Component Object Model (COM) technology. Hence, a well-documented COM based system using Visual Basic and Arc Objects object model was developed. This offers even more possibilities of customization for users.

Key Aspects of the Projects

• Developing VB executable
• A VB executable containing a class (classes) that calculates transit proximity using the source data objects was developed
• Operations Research based project in transportation domain using statistical tools
• Migration of Map Objects/Avenue based product to Arc GIS environment using COM technology

Services rendered and Methodology

• Amenities Adjacency:
  • This tool calculates the percentage of residents in the study area within walk able distance of amenities. This is determined by first creating buffers (walk able distance - user specified) around each amenity and calculating the total number of residents falling within this buffer and comparing with the total population in the study area.
• Amenities Proximity:
  • This tool performs three statistical operations on the total study area, which is classified into different land use patterns. The first operation involves calculating the shortest network distance from each of the dwelling units (origins) to the nearest amenity. This value is populated into the geodatabase.
  • The next operation involves determining for each landuse a ratio between the sum of the product of the network shortest distance of each dwelling unit and the population for that dwelling unit (available as attribute information) and the sum of the total population of all the dwelling units.
  • In the final operation, the second operation is performed over the entire study area instead of each landuse.
• Bus Transit Adjacency to Housing:
  • This tool calculates the percentage of residents in the study area within walk able distance of bus transit stops. This is determined by first creating buffers (walk able distance - user specified) around each bus transit stops and calculating the total number of residents falling within this buffer and comparing with the total population in the study area.
• Bus Transit Proximity to Housing:
  • This tool performs three statistical operations on the total study area, which is classified into different land use patterns. The first operation involves calculating the shortest network distance from each of the dwelling units (origins) to the nearest bus transit stop. This value is populated into the geodatabase.
  • The next operation involves determining for each landuse a ratio between the sum of the product of the network shortest distance of each dwelling unit and the population for that dwelling unit (available as attribute information) and the sum of the total population of all the dwelling units.
    In the final operation, the second operation is performed over the entire study area instead of each landuse.
• Bus Transit Adjacency to Employment:
  • Calculates the percentage of employees in the study area within walk able distance of bus transit stops
• Bus Transit Proximity to Employment:
  • The first operation performed by this tool calculates the shortest network path from business point to bus transit stop.
  • The next operation involves determining for each landuse a ratio between the sum of the product of the network shortest distance of each business point and the number of employees for that business point (available as attribute information) and the sum total of all the employees of all the business points.
• Park Adjacency:
  • Calculates the percent of residents within user-defined linear distance of parks or school yards.
• Park Proximity:
  • The first operation performed by this tool calculates the shortest network path from dwelling units to parks or schoolyard.
  • The next operation involves determining for each landuse a ratio between the sum of the product of the network shortest distance of each dwelling unit and the number of residents for that dwelling unit (available as attribute information) and the sum total of all the residents of all the dwelling units.
• Internal Street Connectivity:
  • Calculates the ratio of the intersections to sum of intersections and cul - de - sacs.
• Street Route Directness:
  • This tool performs an operation to calculate the average ratio of shortest drive able route distance versus straight-line distance, from residents and employees of developed parcels to central node destination.
• Pedestrian Intersection Safety:
  • Calculates the percent of intersections equipped with traffic control devices.
• Pedestrian Accessibilities:
  • Percent of user-defined destinations within 15-minute walk time from user-designated origin point, weighted by pedestrian trip generation and attraction capacity of origins and destinations.

Tools used:

• Arc GIS 8.2
• Visual Basic
• MS Access