Transportation Spatial Database Design

Although almost all data maintained by transportation agencies may be considered as spatial, the data used by GIS applications are generally separate from those used by the mainstream applications of the agency.

The workshop will show the student how to develop an integrated multimodal database design for transportation agencies that not only serves to break down cross-functional barriers but also offers a foundation for true enterprise-level spatial databases. Such a design offers the opportunity for GIS to come out of the backroom and be a viable real-time agency management tool.

Specific topics include:

• Basics of database design and UML
• Survey of major transportation data structures in use today
• Dataset and feature-level metadata
• Support for transactional updates
• Workflow control
• Treating location as a relationship between a position and a datum
• Separating features into their component elements.  
• Identifying events and characteristics

Intended Audience: Students completing this workshop will be able to create database designs that support such functions as reproducing the state of the dataset at any historical point in time, storing data once and use it many times, providing certified datasets and changed-record updates to external users without significant processing overhead, and integrating stovepipe datasets in to a comprehensive multimodal enterprise database for use by both GIS and non-GIS applications.  To get the most out of the workshop, students should be prepared to discuss at least one spatial database design issue they presently face at work.

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