Abstracts Sought for GIS in Transit Conference

January 6, 2009 (Park Ridge, IL) – URISA and the National Center for Transit Research (NCTR) are pleased to announce a new partnership to present the Fifth National GIS in Transit Conference, taking place in St. Petersburg, Florida, November 10-12, 2009. This biennial conference will focus on the growing role of GIS in supporting planning, service delivery, and decision making in public transit.

The Program Committee will organize an educational program based upon the abstracts submitted through the Call for Participation. All abstract submissions, received by February 27, 2009, will be reviewed and considered for this conference.  The Program Committee encourages abstract submissions  in one or more of these four general categories - Applications, Tools, Data, and Management & Policy. Examples of topics within each category are included below:

APPLICATIONS

• Asset Management - Stops, stations, communications, routes/track, work orders, etc; Bus Stop Inventory Collection and Management
• Transit Operations - Scheduling; AVL; voice annunciation; ridership stats; routing; performance analysis; data validation, etc.
• Security and Safety - Crime analysis, accident/safety analysis, emergency planning, disaster recovery, etc.
• Planning -  Service planning; Census data transit planning; transit-oriented development; demand studies (long-range forecasting, transit oriented development, etc.)
• Public Information - data presentation/cartography; trip planners; other public website services
• Other Applications Topics

TOOLS

• Software - Google/Microsoft and transit; open source and web-enabled GIS; mashups, Web 2.0   
• Data Collection - Automatic Passenger Counters (APC); GPS, mobile GIS
• Other Tools Topics

• Data Modeling - transit modeling applications
• Data Standards - transit data standards
• Data Sources -  American Community Survey, LED (Longitudinal Employment Dynamics) Data, Census Data, National Household Data Survey
• Other Data Topics

MANAGEMENT & POLICY

• Enterprise Architecture - implementation issues
• GIS and IT management topics
• FTA/Census/FGDC programs/priorities - Intelligent Transportation Systems, Title 6, NTD Data
• GISP Program
• New Starts Program
• Other Management & Policy Topics

Preconference workshops, an exhibition and networking events will accompany the educational program. Visit the conference website , for details and submission guidelines.