Databases for highway inventories

Proposal for a new model

Santiago Higuera de Frutos - María Castro Malpica

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

http://shiguera.github.io/cit2016

Information levels

Levels of information considered in highway physical inventories

Two kind of data models

Information exchange

LandXML
GML
EuroRoadS
Inspire Specification on Transport Networks

Proprietary software

Commercial Inventory Software
Spanish Highway Inventory

Statement of the problem

Different agents are interested in highway inventories and each one has different needs (Administration authorities, design and construction companies, maintenance companies, emergency services)
Different kinds of roads or paths (classic highways for cars, cycling or pedestrian pathways, forestry roads, tourism uses)
Long and specialized training and design period in current inventory software. This is a handicap in disaster response
Centered in one country language and regulations

Proposal of this paper

Non-SQL database
It does not require previous design
It starts with straightforward model
Users build it in an incremental way
Adaptable to any highway and any user
Multilanguage
Inspired in OpenStreetMap

Geographic Information Components

Spatial Component: Location and Geometry
Thematic Component: Nature and Characteristics

And what about time as third component?

Basic Data Types

Node
Line
Relation
Tag

Tag: Unit of thematic information

Key - Value Pair

Examples:

highway = primary
name = E-98
slope = 0.04

Nodes

Attributes

Id
Longitude, Latitude

Content

Tag's list

Example:

  <node id="25496583" lat="51.5173639" lon="-0.140043">
    <tag k="highway" v="traffic_signals"/>
    <tag k="group" v="warning"/>
    <tag k="code" v="es:P1"/>
  </node>

Lines - Ways

Attributes

Content

Node's list: referenced by Id
Tag's list

Example:

  <Line id="5090250">
    <nd ref="822403"/>
    <nd ref="21533912"/>
    <nd ref="821601"/>
    <tag k="highway" v="residential"/>
    <tag k="name" v="Clipstone Street"/>
    <tag k="oneway" v="yes"/>
  </Line>

Closed Lines - Areas

If the first and last Node of a Line are the same node

Closed Line
Area

Tagging establishes the type of feature

Relations

Modeling complex elements

Attributes

Content

Member's list: type, id, role
Tag's list

Example:

  <relation id="1">
     <tag k="type" v="multipolygon" />
     <member type="way" id="1" role="outer" />
     <member type="way" id="2" role="inner" />
  </relation>

Altitude

Altitude as thematic component
Altitude is a tag
Complex altitude models

Example:

  <node id="25496583" lat="51.5173639" lon="-0.140043">
    <tag k="altitude" v="960.0"/>
    <tag k="levels" v="2"/>
    <tag k="height" v="32.0"/>
    <tag k="min-height" v="12.0"/>
    <tag k="max-height" v="32.0"/>
  </node>