This study aims to improve interoperability between Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and geospatial databases for Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). Road authorities maintain authoritative information for legal and safe navigation in GIS databases. This information needs to be shared with ITS databases for route planning and navigation, and for use in combination with local knowledge from vehicle sensors. Current solutions for modelling and exchanging geospatial information in the domains of GIS and ITS have been studied and evaluated. Limitations have been pointed out related to usability in the GIS domain and flexibility for representing an evolving real world. A prototype for an improved information exchange model has been developed, based on ISO/TC 211 standards, Model Driven Architecture (MDA), and concepts from the studied solutions. The prototype contains generic models for feature catalogues and features, with implementation schemas in the Geography Markup Language (GML). Results from a case study indicated that the models could be implemented with feature catalogues from the ITS standard ISO 14825 Geographic Data Files (GDF) and the INSPIRE Transport Networks specification. The prototype can be a candidate solution for improved information exchange from GIS databases to ITS databases that are based on the Navigation Data Standard. maintain geospatial information representing the road network, regulations, events, conditions, and road equipment, often in applications and databases from the domain of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Furthermore, road authorities may have geospatial information for rural areas where fewer vehicles have travelled, as well as Building Information Models (BIM) with geospatial information representing new roads before the roads are opened. Meanwhile, mapping authorities, of course, maintain base maps of roads and the surrounding environment in GIS databases.The research question in this study is how to improve existing methods for exchange of geospatial information from road and mapping authorities' GIS databases to geospatial ITS databases, illustrated by the three right-headed horizontal arrows in Figure 1.
Materials and Methods
Research DesignThe research described in this paper was based on five steps, illustrated in Figure 3. The state of the art of solutions for information modelling and exchange, in and between the domains of GIS and ITS, was studied and evaluated in step one and two. A prototype for an improved information exchange model was developed in step three. Schema files for implementing the prototype in the GML format were derived from the UML models in step four, following the conversion rules from ISO 19136 [16] and by using the conversion software ShapeChange [26]. Finally, the model was tested and demonstrated in a case study with different feature catalogues in step five.