A GIS web-based traffic accident information system

Abstract

Humanity has faced an enormous technological evolution over the last 15 years in the area of Networks and Communications, in parallel with the continuous progress occurring in the computer hardware and software technologies. Communications and Informatics are undoubtedly considered as the fundamental sections for developing systems and managing their critical component, the data, in order to obtain information and consequently knowledge. As far as spatial data is concerned, the applied aspect of the relevant sciences and the involved technologies lay in the greater area of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). GIS-based software implementations comply with the principles governing contemporary software developments and they often need to be integrated with existing systems of human activities. As a result, specialised server applications termed Internet Map Servers (IMS), satisfy client requests for different purposes including spatial based information retrieval. In addition, existing Database Management Systems (DBMS), handle spatial information and through special software connectors serve requests sourcing from GIS-based applications. Systems dealing with traffic accidents and road safety, may be generally termed as Traffic Accident Information Systems (TAIS), and serve the objectives of the present paper. Accidents are handled as point events and are positioned over the transportation network through appropriate Linear Referencing Systems (LRS). Although, numerous systems have been developed, the system proposed by the present study exploits the benefits of modern, state-of-the-art software modules, regarding spatial information related services.