France-Mensah et al.

Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7

DOI 10.1186/s40327-017-0046-1

CASE STUDY Open Access

GIS-based visualization of integrated

highway maintenance and construction
planning: a case study of Fort Worth, Texas
Jojo France-Mensah1* , William J. O’Brien1, Nabeel Khwaja2 and Loyl C. Bussell3

Abstract
Background: This paper reports on a case study of the use of visualization of geospatial data that is distributed
across data sets and requires integration over time and space to aid decision makers. Like many State Highway
Agencies (SHAs) in the United States, the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is organized along the
traditional functional lines of planning, design, construction, maintenance, and operations. It has historically relied
on experience and longevity of its staff to efficiently and effectively plan its construction and maintenance projects.
Although functional boundaries of maintenance and construction are fairly clearly defined, there tends to be some
overlap in projects that can be executed by either of the functional groups. The department currently does not
have a robust integrated information system for identifying potential planning conflicts between its construction
and maintenance projects. This has led to suboptimal use of resources, including overlapping plans for maintenance
and mobility enhancement projects.
Case description: With over 650 highway projects assigned across two functional groups within the district’s (TxDOT
Fort Worth district) boundary, it is a challenging task to assemble a coherent plan for managing these projects over a
multi-year planning period that is subject to external stakeholder input as well as shifting funding constraints. Temporal
and spatial data needed for integrated planning resides in specialized information systems developed for the needs of
individual functional groups. To address this challenge, this district decided to integrate and visualize data from individual
information systems in a Geographic Information System (GIS). A GIS-based tool was developed to integrate, visualize, and
analyze projects data from multiple information systems.
Discussion and evaluation: This paper documents the benefits associated with visualization and integration of projects
data in a GIS to address planning challenges facing a typical highway agency. Among the lessons learned are the potential
uses of GIS, which include detecting spatially and temporally overlapping projects, supporting integrated planning, and
improving communication among functional groups within a state highway agency.
Conclusion: The study demonstrates that such spatial-temporal representations of project data can lead to early
identification of potential overlaps during the planning phase. In a broader context, such geospatial visualization efforts
can also form the basis for eliciting practitioners’ perspectives and knowledge input in the development of spatial
decision support systems.
Keywords: Geographic information systems (GIS), Data integration, Construction, Data visualization, Maintenance and
rehabilitation (M&R), Highway planning

* Correspondence: francemens@utexas.edu
1
Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, The
University of Texas at Austin, 301 E. Dean Keeton Street, ECJ 5.412, Austin, TX
78712-1094, USA
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

© The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to
the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 2 of 17

Introduction agencies or departments operating on the same high-

Successful highway infrastructure planning and mainten- way facilities (Chi et al. 2013; Ziliaskopoulos and Waller
ance requires significant investments in terms of time, 2000). To compound this problem, multiple independent
human resources, and money. Every year, billions of dol- legacy information systems usually co-exist within the
lars are spent on maintaining highway infrastructure via same agency (Chi et al. 2013; Thill 2000).
new construction projects, road maintenance, and re- In spite of huge investments in data collection and ar-
habilitation activities (Lee et al. 1996; Zhang et al. 2001). chiving efforts, the amount of information and know-
Increasing urbanization has led to a growing demand for ledge generated from data repositories are minimal and
highway infrastructure resulting in transportation systems less supportive of informed decision making. Addition-
becoming more complex in response to the demand ally, both practitioners and researchers have questioned
(O’Brien et al. 2012; Podgorski and Kockelman 2006). the efficiency of data programs in meeting the needs of
Consequently, the need to optimally allocate limited users for highway infrastructure planning purposes
resources to maintain and improve the state of trans- (Flintsch and Bryant 2006; Woldesenbet et al. 2015).
portation infrastructure cannot be overemphasized. Transportation professionals still face the onerous task
These factors among others, significantly affect public of organizing highway data into suitable forms to
funds expenditure on highway infrastructure develop- support decisions concerning highway maintenance, re-
ment, thus drawing increased public scrutiny to habilitation, traffic control, highway monitoring, and
budget planning and funds allocation for highway in- projects prioritization. These issues have given rise to a
frastructure (Sanchez 2006). surge in the demand for effective practices and tools that
Today, the critical focus on and the need for efficient can integrate, manage, and analyze highway data (Parida
management practices in transportation planning and and Aggarwal 2005).
policy are underscored by key federal laws passed in the Over the past two decades, many State Departments
last three decades. These include the Surface Transpor- of Transportation (DOTs) have explored the use of
tation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act of 1987, digital information systems for highway management de-
the ‘Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of cision support (Kang et al. 2008; Lee et al. 1996).
1991 (ISTEA),’ and the recent ‘Moving Ahead for Accordingly, TxDOT relies on several information sys-
Progress in the 21st century Act (MAP-21).’ These laws tems; these include but are not limited to the Pavement
have exhibited an increasing emphasis on integrated Management Information System (PMIS), a Mainten-
management practices and efficient use of federal funds. ance Management Information System (MMIS) referred
They also highlighted the need to invest in transporta- to as COMPASS, and the Design and Construction
tion systems by looking at the issue from the perspective Information System (DCIS). The challenges associated
of economic, socio-cultural, technological, and sustain- with accessing and leveraging data from multiple infor-
able systems. Central to these considerations, is a push mation sources highlights the need for an integrated sys-
towards the use of data to drive highway agencies in tem that can fuse projects data and support applications
making more informed decisions concerning highway to aid Maintenance and Rehabilitation (M&R) planning.
planning and management (Thill 2000). While TxDOT has made progress to integrate some
Such advancement notwithstanding, the transporta- highway data, there is a lack of an automated process
tion planning process is a continuous and arduous task to visualize and integrate data from the individual in-
involving data, models, and users. As part of the plan- formation systems to better support highway project
ning process, decision-makers need to use a vast collec- planning decisions.
tion of data and information to address a number of The need for such a system has grown for metropol-
substantial issues like traffic management, construction itan districts since they have significantly more lane-
scheduling, Right of Way (ROW) acquisition, public miles of on-system highways under their responsibility
communication, and others (Nobrega and O’Hara 2011; and consequently more projects in various phases of de-
Sankaran et al. 2016a; Woldesenbet et al. 2015). High- velopment and delivery at any given time. The funding
way agencies often collect a plethora of data and infor- mechanism for maintaining, rehabilitating and upgrad-
mation about the nation’s network of highways. The ing the existing system is complex. It has become further
sources of such data vary widely and their forms range complicated since TxDOT’s funding is dependent on rev-
from drawings, pictures, maps, tables, text descrip- enue from multiple sources with different permissible uses.
tions, to accounts of personal experience (Flintsch Moreover, the planning process is fiscally-constrained at
et al. 2004). However, highway agencies usually have the category level; the amount of funding available deter-
to deal with fragmented databases, multiple incom- mines the number of projects that can be planned within
patible models, redundant data acquisition efforts, specific categories. Metropolitan planning organizations’
and sub-optimal coordination between the various (MPO) policy boards have responsibility for certain funding
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 3 of 17

categories requiring concurrence from TxDOT. In addition, especially in states like Texas. Consequently, highway
at any given time, several projects are in various phases of planning and projects prioritization have become even
construction. The actual cost of construction can vary from more laborious for decision-makers. The following chal-
the budgeted costs that affect category funds available going lenges identified in these research studies (Caldas et al.
forward. Construction costs can vary from budgeted costs 2011; Podgorski and Kockelman 2006; Waddell 2011)
at the time of bidding or throughout the construction further highlight additional issues that highway planners
phase owing to change orders, unexpected conflicts need- generally need to contend with:
ing additional right-of-way, costs to relocated existing util-
ities, and many others. Furthermore, there are instances  Agency Goals: Multiple stakeholders including
when existing roadways that were not expected to be reha- Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPOs), state
bilitated within the planning horizon, have to be rehabili- and district agencies, and private institutions all have
tated owing to faster deterioration in condition. This leads different mandates and pursue unique individual
to reactive maintenance to maintain safety and pushing goals. Consequently, due to the competing interests
lesser priority projects down the list. The combined effect of agencies and functional groups within highway
of these factors (and many more) creates a need for an inte- agencies, the planning process often yields results
grated planning process leveraging modern visualization that are sub-optimal for individual agencies or
tools which will allow the integration of temporal and functional groups within the same agency.
spatial data which can be viewed, reviewed, and updated in  Uncertainty: Uncertainties in ROW acquisition,
a dynamic setting. environmental review, public acceptance, and political
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next approval greatly affects an already complex highway
section describes the general challenges in performing planning process.
highway planning tasks and how GIS has been previ-  Knowledge Acquisition Approaches: Divergent
ously used to address some of the identified challenges. epistemologies also create a major problem for
In the “Objective and Methodology” section, a research integrated highway planning. More often than not,
framework based on a case study is presented. Following different approaches to knowledge extraction result
this, the “Case Study” section points out district-specific in different conclusions about highway issues which
barriers to planning tasks and how a GIS-based tool was affect the interventions that different agencies or
developed to integrate data from multiple information functional groups would like to take.
systems used by the district. A formalized presentation  Transparency: Highway agencies continue to struggle
of the benefits of GIS integration and visualization to in employing multiple communication modes to make
M&R planning follows. Finally, the paper ends with con- highway plans available while implementing decision
clusions on the findings of this study and the directions models that have a satisfactory degree of transparency.
for future work in the “Conclusions” section.  Limited Resources: SHAs usually do not have enough
resources (human, cost, and time) to perform other
Background review relevant M&R functions. This includes effectively
Planning is a complex and multidimensional process performing audits on integrated highway development
which requires re-thinking of traditional approaches plans and tracking highway project allocations on
(Dragićević and Balram 2004). Planning involves proce- different pavement sections over the long term.
dures to identify future transportation needs and recom-  Data Availability and Quality: The increasing
mending solutions in the long- to midterm timeframes. complexity of the application of information technology
This includes developing transportation strategies which sometimes complicates the planning process. However,
consider transportation investments and addresses the crucial concern is that the tools developed to
strategicissues at the local, state and network level extract useful information for modeling and decision
(Systematics 2006). State Highway Agencies (SHAs) support are far from addressing the needs of users.
need to make the most efficient choices in the plan-
ning and allocation of inadequate highway funds to NCHRP studies (Neumann 1997; Systematics 2006)
keep highway infrastructure physically robust and also reiterated the presence of these problems across
functionally efficient. In addition to rising costs to main- many DOTs in the nation. According to NCHRP Report
tain the aging transportation network, the Texas transpor- 798 (D’Ignazio et al. 2015), planners need to project
tation system is also strained by traffic congestion and long-term transportation needs, identify funding strat-
infrastructure deterioration (Podgorski and Kockelman egies and sources, and optimize resources available to
2006). This problem is exacerbated by highway spending attain the best value for highway investments. In con-
shortfalls due to insufficient state “gas tax” revenues which ducting lifecycle planning for transportation assets, they
constitute a major component of highway funding sources also need to incorporate maintenance operations while
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 4 of 17

planning for new capital construction projects. This pavement condition data, traffic data, pavement preser-
process involves having functional groups within the vation planning data, and capital project planning data.
same highway agency working across silos to compre- This was used for projects prioritization of preservation
hend and integrate agency-wide thinking; the key to this and improvement projects. The maintenance data were
process being information flow. also fused with pavement condition data to determine
Highway infrastructure problems in many cases in- routine inspections and repairs on the state’s highway
volve spatial relationships between objects and events. facilities (Rydholm et al. 2015).
Accordingly, visualization of highway data has been ex- Highway agencies, Colorado State DOT (CDOT),
pedited by current advances in information technology North Dakota DOT (NDDOT) and TxDOT have all cre-
and data collection technologies (Khattak and Shamayleh ated online interactive maps that visualize construction
2005). Given the spatial characteristics of road network projects (usually capital construction projects) scheduled
data, the rational way to store and use such data should to take place in their respective states. Most of these
be via a consistent spatial referencing system such as a maps give users the option to query the map for easier
GIS (Medina et al. 1999). GIS is primarily used for storing, extraction of relevant information (Colorado Depart-
querying, analyzing, visualizing, and interpreting geo- ment of Transportation 2016; North Dakota Department
graphic data. It helps to reveal patterns and trends of of Transportation 2016; Texas Department of Trans-
objects that relate to one another in space and time portation 2016a). In the case of TxDOT, however,
(Ford et al. 2012). projects are visualized by the different phases of pro-
With GIS, a user can integrate information from vari- ject development and long term versus short term
ous sources and spatially connect that information to planned projects.
study aspects of an infrastructure system that was hith- Michigan DOT has multiple online maps that docu-
erto unapparent. By leveraging the capabilities of GIS, ment road and bridge projects for their 5-years transpor-
many highway agencies today are integrating highway tation program. MDOT also created an online map for
data to improve highway operations and planning tasks the different public agencies responsible for the main-
(Flintsch et al. 2004). Transportation agencies are using tenance of road segments throughout the state. Using
GIS tools to collect data, communicate information their in-house developed tool (Transportation Manage-
about asset condition and needs, select and prioritize ment System), agency staff use GIS for spatial analysis of
treatments, plan and manage work, and aid with disaster road condition data, asset inventory, and budget decisions
recovery (Rasdorf et al. 2003). In most cases, however, for project planning (Federal Highway Administration
these applications are limited to collecting and display- FHWA 2012).
ing data and involves limited use of targeted spatial ana- The Transportation Information Mapping System
lysis functions (Hall 2015). Over the past two decades, (TIMS) of Ohio DOT is one of the most robust and ex-
several research efforts have demonstrated the applic- tensive GIS-based systems used by DOTs. It contains
ability and value-added impact of GIS to highway pave- data on all their transportation infrastructure assets,
ment management and highway planning (Flintsch et al. safety, roadway information, environmental issues, and
2004; Hall 2015; Sanchez 2006). Many other research alternate modes of transportation in the state. It pro-
efforts have explored this area, emphasizing the integra- vides users with the ability to visualize capital highway
tion of decision-support tools and methods (Beiler and projects scheduled for the next 4 fiscal years as well as
Treat 2014; Parida and Aggarwal 2005; Zhang et al. projects completed in the previous 4 fiscal years on
1994; Zhou et al. 2009). highway assets. Additionally, it has the capability to inte-
grate external spatial data in multiple interoperable for-
Previous applications of GIS for project planning by DOTs mats (including shapefiles, Google Earth files, latitude/
Today, many DOTs use GIS to visualize previous, active longitude coordinates, among others).
and planned construction projects in their respective However, in most of these endeavors, data integration,
states. With an increasing emphasis on transparency and visualization efforts have focused on using GIS to
with the public, SHAs also tend to provide online ver- support either capital planning or highway maintenance
sions of such visualization efforts via GIS server plat- operations—rarely integrating both. One of the few cases
forms. Most of the SHAs discussed below were of such an endeavor is from Connecticut DOT
recognized by the Federal Highway Administration (ConnDOT). ConnDOT were reported to have mapped
(FHWA) for their data integration and geo-visualization candidate projects and planned work for maintenance
efforts using GIS for highway project planning and and capital construction projects. It was estimated that
communication. this could lead to increased coordination between the
Washington State Department of Transportation construction and maintenance functional groups within
(WSDOT) created an integrated database that utilized the highway agency (Hall 2015).
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 5 of 17

This notwithstanding, the extant literature still lacks a the planning challenges that they face. The agency staff
formalized approach to integrating projects data from who contributed to this phase included highway profes-
the “capital construction planning” and “maintenance” sionals who have worked in the construction and main-
functional groups to support integrated decision making. tenance planning roles for at least a decade. After
To address this gap in practice and research, the aim of identifying the challenges faced, the research team fo-
this study includes presenting a data integration frame- cused on addressing a technological challenge that could
work for fusing projects data using GIS. Furthermore, aid in also addressing some of the organizational chal-
this study provides a repeatable data integration process; lenges. A data integration approach was proposed and a
providing highway agency staff with custom spatial func- GIS-based tool was built to demonstrate the practicality
tions to extract useful information from an integrated of the framework. Finally, based on input from agency
database, and links these functions to practical benefits staff, researchers identified the practical benefits of this
that improve the highway planning process. tool to M&R project planning.

Objective and methodology Case description

There are two components to the objective of this paper. The Fort Worth District is responsible for nine (9) coun-
The first involves documenting the existing M&R pro- ties and approximately 9,000 highway lane miles within
ject planning procedures and identifying planning chal- its boundary. The district oversees nearly $4 billion in-
lenges that exist within districts. The second involves vestment in construction projects and over $100 million
integrating projects data from disparate sources in a GIS annual expenditure on preventative, routine, and re-
environment to address information needs of highway habilitative maintenance operations (Texas Department
planners and other functional groups within the district. of Transportation 2016b). Given the scope of operations
Given the objective and exploratory nature of this re- of this district, the need for seamless integration of indi-
search, the research team chose the case study approach vidual information systems is evident. Figure 2 displays
(Eisenhardt 1989). The case study method draws on an overview of the entire ‘on-system’ highway network
actual events to investigate modern procedures and of the Fort Worth area and the user interface of the
phenomena that have a general impact on the state of GIS-based tool that was developed.
practice in an otherwise unalterable environment (Yin The ‘on-system’ highway network excludes county
2013). Researchers chose a case study involving the de- roads, local city streets, and functionally classified city
velopment and use of a GIS-based tool to support inte- streets, which the district office is usually not respon-
grated highway maintenance and construction planning. sible for. While there are instances where the district
Figure 1 shows an overview of the research approach collaborates with city agencies to maintain city streets,
followed in this study. the projects involved usually remain under the purview
The initial part of the study involves an extensive lit- of the city’s planning agency. Also, the user interface
erature review and input from highway agency staff on mainly includes a “Quick Access” toolbar, “Custom

Fig. 1 Framework of research methodology using TxDOT (Fort Worth) case study
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 6 of 17

Fig. 2 Screenshot of user interface of GIS-based tool with on-system highway network of Fort Worth, Texas

Functions” toolbar, and feature layers displayed to the

left of the screen (default in ArcMap application of
ESRI’s ArcGIS Software).

Transportation plans (TxDOT)

The state law requires TxDOT to provide the Legislative
Budget Board (LBB) and the Governor with a district-
specific analysis plan for the use of highway funds. The
plan should include pavement score targets and the per-
formance impact of the proposed maintenance spending
on the state of the highway infrastructure network (Liu
et al. 2012). Consequently, TxDOT prepares the 4-years
Pavement Management Plan (PMP) which includes
financial constraints for all categories of highway M&R
funding (new, preventive, and routine maintenance pro-
jects). The PMP is usually a part of a more extensive
plan for the entire transportation network of the state of
Texas. Figure 3 shows the 10-years Unified Transporta-
tion Program (UTP), the 4-years State Transportation
Improvement Plan (STIP), and the 2-years letting sched-
Fig. 3 Three-tier TxDOT transportation development plans
ule by TxDOT. This case study examined the 4-years
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 7 of 17

plan (STIP) focusing on the highway projects scheduled and potential benefits of integrating multiple data
for those fiscal years. sources and technologies should be explored within this
context. More importantly, this allows tacit and explicit
Current state of practice (TxDOT) knowledge gained to be better incorporated in the devel-
Two of TxDOT’s stated goals and objectives consist of opment of later versions of information systems (Tsai
“delivering the right projects by implementing effective and Lai 2002). Thus, the planning challenges associated
planning and forecasting processes to deliver the right with the current highway planning process in this dis-
projects on time, and on budget, and preserving its assets trict are discussed below.
through preventive maintenance of the system and cap-
ital assets”(Texas Department of Transportation 2016b). Planning challenges in fort worth district
In order to meet these and additional goals, TxDOT’s In carrying planning tasks, TxDOT districts rely on indi-
complex portfolio of projects consists of maintenance, vidual functional groups within its organization. These
rehabilitation, safety, bridge, widening, capacity-addition, groups collaborate throughout the planning process for
and several other project types delivered by its district highway infrastructure planning and development.
offices responsible for multi-county geographical regions However, due to disparities in information systems,
of Texas. The simpler maintenance projects can either unique functional group funding processes, and plan-
be done with in-house workforce or through contractors ning requirements; agency staff is continually chal-
with very short turnaround times. Maintenance projects lenged to attain a wholly integrated planning process
can cover both roadway and roadside maintenance tasks. (D’Ignazio et al. 2015).
Normally these projects are handled by the maintenance
functional group of a district office. These projects are Different information systems and data access
programmed in the aforementioned COMPASS system and TxDOT’s functional groups currently use architecturally
can have very short planning time associated with them. different information systems to support the project-
Additional maintenance projects can be cyclical in nature. planning process that each group undertakes. Further-
However, several M&R projects require planning and de- more, expertise needed for utilizing information in these
sign effort with associated lead time and a formal process systems is limited to specific functional group staff. Both
of letting to achieve cost-efficiencies. These projects are systems do allow users to capture project information
planned, programmed, and generally developed by the with multiple location attributes including linear refer-
transportation planning and development (TPD) group of a ences; nevertheless, each functional group has a pre-
district. They are managed within the DCIS information ferred primary location attribute, which leads to an
system which is the department’s primary system of record asymmetry of information about location attributes.
for design and construction projects. On the farther end, Accordingly, planners for construction-let projects (in
there are capacity addition and reconstruction projects DCIS) tend to use, as their primary location attribute,
managed by the TPD that take years to plan, design, and qualitative descriptions like intersections (limits) that a
fund for construction. project will expand to and from. On the other hand, staff
Developing plans consisting of projects that in the Maintenance functional group often uses the
undergo “starts” and “stops” during their varied de- Texas Reference Marker System (a type of a Linear
velopment phases is a continual challenge faced by Referencing System). This reduces the ease of informa-
the district staff. The district’s maintenance and TPD tion flow between these two departments and points to
functional groups have different challenges and pro- the need for a more integrated system that can visualize
cesses for planning, design, funding, and delivery. these projects obviating the need to be familiar with the
This is primarily due to the type of projects within other department’s preferred spatial referencing system.
their purview and the associated expectations and
funding constraints. In order to gain synergy between Project scheduling periods
the plans of these functional groups, the district lead- The project scheduling periods for the TPD and Main-
ership depends on effective communication and col- tenance functional groups are usually 10 years (UTP)
laboration among multiple stakeholders (Sankaran and 4 years (PMP) respectively. As a result of this dis-
et al. 2016b). However, the above-described processes parity in the planning horizons, it becomes difficult to
can benefit from emerging tools and techniques to track some of the DCIS projects that need to be pro-
save time and enhance effectiveness. grammed with corresponding maintenance activities in
Prior to engaging in extensive visualization efforts, it is the COMPASS database. Staff from both functional
important to work with agency staff to understand the groups needs to ensure that complementary projects are
extant work practice, issues with the existing system, scheduled in a consistent manner. For example, “Level
and identifying areas for improvement. As such, the use up” projects that usually complement “Seal Coat”
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 8 of 17

projects need to be programmed together for every fiscal of the Fort Worth district, the complexity involved in
year. This process of tracking complementary projects managing all these projects over multi-year cycles is evi-
and the dynamic changes that occur due to annual com- dent. Furthermore, the overlaps in inter-connected high-
plexities in project priorities can benefit immensely from way projects that reside in different databases are not
an integrated database of M&R projects. apparent in traditional database systems due to the ab-
sence of a visual component.
Funding sources After identifying and obtaining the required data
Similarly, the funding sources often vary for projects res- sources, the next step of this project was to process the
iding in different information systems. Multiple stake- data to ensure that all the records contained accurate
holders are involved in the selection of these projects, spatial attribute values in a GIS-compatible format.
which call for stronger justification to the public, local Figure 4 displays a conceptual flowchart that documents
agencies, and federal institutions. While, projects in data processing (data cleaning, validation, etc.), geopro-
COMPASS are simpler and consequently require simpler cessing, and visualization in the GIS-based tool. The
decision-making process as compared to the DCIS pro- succeeding sub-section provides more in-depth informa-
jects, the overlap in funding sources between the pro- tion about the data processing and geoprocessing tasks
jects in the different systems further challenges the followed in developing this tool. The framework includes
complexity in developing a funding strategy and conse- 3 major components; data extraction from the database
quently, planning for projects. systems, a middleware —processing platform, and the
These issues make it difficult for such individual func- output in the form of active maps and reports.
tional groups to develop maintenance plans while giving
full consideration to upcoming construction projects by Stage 2: data/geo-processing
other divisions. Staff from different functional groups The processing took place in two steps—data processing
within the district would clearly benefit from data inte- and geoprocessing using GIS. The first step involved
gration and visualization, as this would lead to improved data processing in a spreadsheet environment for the ex-
information flow, better collaboration, and effective inte- tracted projects data. This comprised data cleaning, data
grated planning. validation, and sorting. Data cleaning is concerned with
identifying and removing errors and inconsistencies
Developing GIS-based tool for visualization from data in order to enhance the quality of data (Rahm
In view of the planning challenges identified above, the and Do 2000). Most of the data-processing tasks in-
district decided to address the disparities in information volved data cleaning. A new field was also created to
systems and data access barriers. This was done via the query the highway inventory database for GIS-
development of an integrated GIS-based tool to fuse all compatible linear reference values for project records.
the projects’ information from the TPD and Mainten- This was done by cross referencing the other location
ance functional groups of the district. Thus, the team referencing systems to a central and comprehensive lin-
went through the following stages. ear referencing system known as the “Distance from
Origin (DFO) system. The PMIS of TxDOT contains
Stage 1: extraction of input data three different linear referencing systems for each discre-
The first step was to identify the relevant data sources tized pavement section for the entire highway network.
and data types required for developing the GIS-based Accordingly, after the DFO system was selected as the
tool. The sources used could be broadly grouped as GIS main LRS for integration purposes, all the other referen-
shapefiles, highway inventory data, DCIS projects data, cing systems were converted to the DFO system. Given
and COMPASS projects data. The GIS data were that all the referencing systems are linear, intermediate
accessed primarily from the Transportation Planning values were interpolated. In a few instances (less than
and Programming (TPP) division of TxDOT and the 5%) where only qualitative location descriptions were
Texas Natural Resources Information System (TNRIS). given, the authors used the “Statewide Planning Map”
Table 1 shows the different data sources, formats, attri- (Texas Department of Transportation 2016a) developed
butes, and a brief description of each database or by TxDOT to extract the DFO values of project
shapefile. limits.
Additionally, Table 2 shows a breakdown of projects The projects’ data were also validated using a “set of
by data source and project classification. The projects validation rules” to ensure that attribute and spatial data
data extracted and displayed in Table 2 were obtained in were consistent across all records in the databases. An
February 2016. Hence, some of the projects may have example of a consistency rule is that the sum of the be-
changed since then. With over 650 projects under the ginning TRM number (DFO equivalent) of a project and
purview of the TPD and Maintenance functional groups its displacement should be equal to the DFO value for
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 9 of 17

Table 1 Projects data source, relevant attributes and description

Database (Format) Relevant Attributes Description
DCIS • Project description This is a statewide automated information system
(Comma Separated Values - CSV) • Spatial (county, highway, reference markers, DFO) which allows all district offices of TxDOT to manage
• Temporal (fiscal year and letting dates) projects data in a consistent common format.
• Cost (construction cost estimate) It mostly contains highway projects funded by all
the 12 categories of funding by TxDOT.
COMPASS • Activity description The COMPASS system is the Maintenance Management
(Hypertext markup language - Html) • Spatial (county, highway) Information System (MMIS) of TxDOT that allows districts
• Temporal (fiscal year and letting dates) to manage maintenance activities that are more routine
• Cost (construction, equipment, labor, materials and are usually of a smaller scope.
estimate)
Highway Inventory Data - PMIS • Spatial (county, highway, reference markers, DFO) PMIS is a comprehensive database on the entire
(Excel spreadsheet - xls*) • Road condition data (distress, ride, skid, and condition network of the state-maintained highway system.
scores) It contains extensive information for each pavement
• Pavement roadbed information (main lanes or frontage section in the entire network.
roads, single or divided roadbeds)
• Traffic data (AADT, etc.)
On-system Highway Network • Spatial (county, highway, reference markers, DFO) This is a “polyline” shapefile which was used as the
(Shapefile - shp) • Pavement roadbed information (main lanes or frontage “route event” feature dataset on which events/projects
roads, single or divided roadbeds) were visualized. It contains all the relevant spatial
attributes and features to visualize projects in GIS.
Auxiliary: • Spatial (county, reference markers, DFO) These are “polygon” and “point” shapefiles that contain
County Boundaries and Reference • County polygons the county delineations and linear reference markers
Markers respectively.
(Shapefile - shp)

the starting point of a project. The same applies for the 20” had to be formatted to “IH0020.” Secondly, to indi-
ending point of a project limit. Table 3 gives examples of cate whether the road was a left or right main lane, left
the value range restrictions and valid data formats that or right frontage road, or one undivided roadbed, a
were used to ensure that the value entries for the spatial 2-letter appendix (“-?G”) was added. This naming con-
attributes in the projects database were consistent and vention is consistent with TxDOT’s official highway
accurate. name designations for main lanes and frontage roads.
For the complementary attribute field, the highway The second step involved data fusion in a geospatial en-
number had to be exactly the same format across the vironment. Route event layers were created using the high-
different project data sources. As such, the original fields way network shapefile and the processed projects data.
were formatted to be consistent with the valid value ESRI’s ArcGIS software was used for geospatial operations
range and data format. For example, first, the entry “IH because that was the default GIS application used by
TxDOT at the time of the tool’s development. Figure 5
Table 2 Projects breakdown by information system source in shows a systematic flow of the data processing and geopro-
TxDOT (Fort Worth) cessing tasks followed in developing the GIS-based tool.
Source Number of Source Number of
Projects Projects Stage 3: visualization output (layers)
DCIS COMPASS Projects data were visualized as feature layers according to
HMA Overlay 37 Routine 229 the county, project type, and fiscal year. Figure 6 shows a
Maintenance visual of the 4-years PMP for the district according to the
Seal Coat 37 Preventive 34 fiscal year as displayed in the tool. It also includes some
Maintenance projects from the 10-years UTP from the long-term plan
Safety 63 Light Rehabilitation 10 for highway construction projects in DCIS. In addition to
Bridge 26 Medium 17 this, intra-database and inter-database analyses were also
Rehabilitation performed and added as layers to the tool.
Others 206 Heavy 3 Intra-database analysis refers to the identification of sec-
(Miscellaneous, etc.) Rehabilitation tions of highway pavement that are scheduled to receive
Total 369 Total 293 annual or biennial projects in the same database (DCIS or
Grand Total Number of Projects 662 COMPASS). Included within this category, for example,
Others also include among others, Right-of-Way (ROW), Landscape enhancement,
would be a road pavement with a rehabilitation project
and Preliminary engineering project classifications scheduled to take place continuously for 3 consecutive
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 10 of 17

Fig. 4 Conceptual framework for a GIS-based tool developed for Case Study

fiscal years. On the other hand, inter-database analysis re- Stage 4: custom functions
fers to the identification of pavements that have both con- Thematic maps are not the end-products in GIS, but are
struction and maintenance projects scheduled to take a means to store and represent information that is vital
place in the same fiscal year—for example, a road section for analysis and decision-making (Rasdorf et al. 2003).
that has a “light rehabilitation” project (COMPASS) and a Beyond thematic maps, other functions like reporting,
“Seal Coat” project (DCIS) scheduled within the same querying, and other custom functions can be added to a
fiscal year. Figures 7 and 8 show visual examples of con- GIS to make it more valuable to the planning process. In
flicting project layers for projects across databases and this case study, planners were provided with 2 custom
road sections receiving repetitive annual M&R treatments functions to aid in information extraction from the
respectively. spatial database. The first function allows planners to
execute spatial-temporal queries from the integrated
Table 3 Validation rules implemented on spatial data quality database. For spatial-temporal queries, highway planners
fields (based on PMIS data) can query the integrated spatial database for answers to
Reference System Spatial Data Attribute Valid Value Valid questions in the form;
Range format
Texas Reference Beginning Reference 0– 668 Integer
Marker System Marker Number “What are the construction or maintenance (DCIS or
COMPASS) projects in County A, of project type B
Ending Reference 0– 668 Integer
Marker Number that cost C dollars, which are scheduled to take place
Beginning Reference 0.00 – 0.99 Decimal
in D fiscal year?”
Marker Displacement
Ending Reference 0.00 – 0.99 Decimal This query function allows planners to query by data-
Marker Displacement base source for 4 major attributes including county, pro-
Mile Point Beginning Mile Point 0.00 – 50.00 Decimal ject/work type, estimated construction cost, and planned
Reference System
Ending Mile Point 0.00 – 50.00 Decimal
fiscal year of execution. The advantage of a GIS-based
system over traditional database system in executing this
Distance From *Beginning DFO 0.00 – 454.50 Decimal
Origin (DFO) query is demonstrated by the visualization of an output
*Ending DFO 0.00 – 454.50 Decimal layer which is the response to the query. For example,
Complementary *Highway Number “??????-?G” String Fig. 9 shows the result of the “spatial-temporal” function
*GIS-compatible data attributes query for DCIS construction projects in all the districts,
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 11 of 17

Fig. 5 Data processing and geoprocessing flow chart for highway projects data

of project type “Seal Coat” that cost more than $100,000 place the same time (month/year) as an “Asphalt
in the fiscal year, 2017. Overlay” project (residing in DCIS). The process of
The left image in Fig. 9 shows the projects on pave- identifying these conflicting projects is what has been
ment sections that satisfy the query that was constructed referred to in this study as a “spatio-temporal conflict
for the system. Similarly, the right image shows a snap- analysis.” Highway planners can therefore ask ques-
shot of the attribute table of the resulting layer created tions in the form;
to demonstrate the accuracy of the query results and the
information that a typical user(s) can access. The high- “Are there any conflicting projects on Highway A in
way names are in the standardized format used by County B, of project type(s) C scheduled for the fiscal
TxDOT and the project classification “SC” represents year, D?”
“Seal Coat.” Also, the roadbed type designation “ML”
represents “Main Lanes.” Figure 10 shows a snapshot of the simplified represen-
The second custom function is used to conduct tation (left) and user interface (right) of the 2 custom
spatial-temporal conflict analyses on any number of functions built to support the querying and conflicts
layers to investigate potential project-scheduling errors analysis. The query function is a modification of the de-
in both project databases. Conflicting projects are de- fault “Make Feature Layer” tool in the “model Builder”
fined in this context as a number (2 or more) of projects environment of the ArcMap application (one of the
which reside in different information systems but are ArcGIS suite of applications). The “input features” and
scheduled to be executed on the same pavement section SQL “expressions” were parametrized and customized
within the same time frame. In the context of this case according to the attributes of the feature layers in the
study, an example will be if a “medium rehabilitation” tool. Similarly, the conflict analysis tool is a modification
project (residing in COMPASS) is scheduled to take of the default “Intersect” tool of ArcMap. Here again, for
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 12 of 17

Fig. 6 Screen shot of DCIS projects by fiscal year and county for 4 years -plan (PMP)

the purposes of automation and general applicability, the enumerated below present ways in which GIS was, and
“input features” and the “output feature” name were pa- can be used to support highway project planning.
rametrized. This allows users to run these analyses on
any number of feature layers (default or generated)
present in the GIS-based tool. Detecting redundant projects
These custom functions provided users with advanced The existing state of highway planning is at risk of
capabilities of extracting useful information about pro- scheduling projects whose scope of work may be cov-
jects across databases (DCIS and COMPASS) to support ered or countered by overlapping M&R projects by a dif-
highway-planning decisions. The next section will throw ferent functional group. The principal benefit of the
more light on the practical ways in which this GIS-based GIS-based tool was its ability to synthesize all the over-
tool can be used to enhance the project planning process lapping projects inside and across different projects da-
for maintenance and construction projects. tabases. Instances of redundant or unnecessary projects
occur when the Maintenance functional group schedules
Discussion and evaluation a project that is within the scope of projects in the other
This case study highlights how GIS technology can im- (DCIS) database. It would be redundant, for instance, to
prove, through visualization, the decision-making process schedule and allocate funds to install lane markings on a
for planning highway projects. The primary functions of road section that is scheduled for a “Seal Coat” project a
GIS in this regard include among others, the ability to in- few months later. The seal coat project consists of a new
tegrate data from heterogeneous highway data sources surface treatment on the road and striping, thus calling
and visually displaying projects in a way which is more for new pavement lane markings. By preventing such a
useful for agency staff. GIS also affords highway agencies project from going to the project development phase,
the opportunity to execute both spatial queries and con- district staff is able to save tax-payer dollars. Table 4
flict analyses that would, hitherto, have been difficult to shows a list of the hitherto defined intra-database over-
achieve in a solely database environment. The benefits laps and inter-database conflicts.
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 13 of 17

Fig. 7 Conflicting highway projects on the same pavement section in fiscal year, 2017

The numbers (outside the brackets) in Table 4 repre- from other departments. Taking advantage of GIS’ spatial
sent the number of instances where conflicting or over- contextualization of data would lead to access and con-
lapping projects were identified on the same pavement sideration of scheduled M&R projects during capital
section. It is evident from Table 4 that there is a signifi- project planning and vice versa. Consequently, agency
cantly lower number of intra-database overlaps for pave- staff in the Maintenance group can better plan for main-
ment sections which can be attributed to the fact that tenance projects because they will be aware of current
construction projects in DCIS are more intermittent and future capital construction projects scheduled for
than maintenance operations projects. Furthermore, the the different pavement sections in the district.
maintenance projects database also includes more regu-
lar routine maintenance projects. This makes it more Audit planned projects
likely for the same pavement section to receive multiple Due to the complexities and constraints of financial
instances of routine maintenance activities across differ- sources that are used in funding projects, sometimes high-
ent fiscal years. way projects are split up into 2 smaller scope projects and
put in the capital construction projects database and the
Integrated planning and visualization maintenance projects database. Consequently, transporta-
Within DOTs, there is a perennial challenge of integrat- tion planners occasionally schedule projects that are com-
ing plans from different functional groups with individ- plementary but exist in different information systems or
ual goals and priorities, which is exacerbated by using databases. Functions like spatial queries and conflict ana-
different information systems. By leveraging GIS-based lyses in an integrated GIS environment allow highway en-
visualization of projects data, staff from different depart- gineers to audit and confirm the logic of spatial and
ments who are trying to make project planning deci- temporal relationships between construction-let and
sions, can have access to and utilize useful information maintenance projects scheduled for the same highway
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 14 of 17

Fig. 8 Multi-year COMPASS projects that take place on the same pavement section

Fig. 9 Map (left) and attribute table (right) for query results of “Seal Coat (SC)” projects
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 15 of 17

Fig. 10 Model builder and user input window representations of custom functions; a) spatial-temporal querying and b) projects’ conflict analysis

section. In this case study, spatial queries were used by of thought. One is that technology should be used to
highway planning engineers to detect the absence or support and make more efficient, the existing work prac-
otherwise of complementary M&R projects that were sup- tices of an entity. The other is that technological ad-
posed to be in the ‘other’ highway projects database. This vancement needs to disrupt or redefine how workflows
led to a review of that procedure and corrective action take place. For many highway agencies, the former is
was taken to update the information system. more likely to hold sway among decision makers.
Accordingly, in the context of this case study, GIS-based
Re-design and improve workflows visualization and data integration can be used to better
In conversations about relationships between technology support the project-planning process in the latter stages
and work practices, there are usually two main schools of project programming or be used to re-design some of
the workflow processes for highway projects.
Table 4 Spatial Overlaps and Conflicts identified in DCIS and In this case study, conflict analyses were used to iden-
COMPASS tify highway road sections that have been receiving a
For Fiscal Years (2017–2019)
high frequency of rehabilitation projects over the
planning horizon. As seen in Table 4, performing intra-
Information Period Intra-database Inter-database
system Overlaps* (mileage) Conflicts (mileage) database analysis affords highway planners the oppor-
DCIS Annual (3 years 1 (0.48) 33 (57.7) tunity to review pavement sections that are receiving
continuous) repetitive rehabilitation projects over the planning
Biennial 6 (3.59) period. This can lead to the selection of a more elaborate
COMPASS Annual (3 years 38 (43.97)
long-term pavement treatment option. In this example,
continuous) the proposed workflow incorporates lessons from the
Biennial 29 (53.91) GIS-based system during the project-planning and -pro-
gramming stage in lieu of using the system only to man-
Sum Total 107 (159.65)
age already scheduled projects. For instance, 14 out of
*Excluding Routine maintenance projects that include tree removal and trimming,
litter removal, and ROW mowing. Sum total of the mileage of the concerned road
the total 67 intra-database overlaps in the COMPASS
segments are in brackets database were sections of pavement with at least one
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 16 of 17

incident of a light or medium rehabilitation project for 3 practical data integration challenges with GIS and to
consecutive fiscal years. These pavement sections can, propose recommendations for improved data manage-
therefore, be reviewed for potential consideration of a ment practices for the district. Additionally, future work
major capital construction project or a heavy rehabilita- may also include the integration of highway conditions
tion project that can have a more effective long-term im- data, accidents data, and traffic information to provide a
pact on pavement performance. central source of information for the district to aid in
project planning.
Improved communication among decision-makers The authors recognize that every DOT is different and
Visualization of projects provides transportation agencies the highway planning practices may differ from one
with a more “natural” way of presenting and viewing high- agency to another. However, this paper presented prac-
way projects information. This leads to an ideal approach tical issues that are familiar to most DOTs and highway
to support more intuitive and effective communication of agencies in the domain of highway project planning. The
scheduled projects with other decision makers and stake- findings of this study highlight an opportunity for high-
holders in general. As pointed out by Jha et al. (2001), way agency staff to take advantage of GIS to improve in-
such geospatial efforts can lead to a wider participation of tegrated planning of highway infrastructure. The key to
decision-makers at early stages of project planning while this process is the need for DOTs to, first, identify exist-
aiding in the anticipation of planning errors. ing challenges with their current planning process and,
In the context of this case study, the GIS tool is currently second, employ GIS where necessary to address data-
available to agency staff in the Fort Worth district including related issues. As highlighted by this case study, the op-
all the area engineers in the district. Other stakeholders portunities for improvement are substantial and warrant
who also need access to the tool are granted access to sup- investment in new tools and supporting processes.
port a more collaborative effort during project planning.
The tool allows the district staff to better communicate Acknowledgements
The case study project for this paper was funded by the Fort Worth District
with area offices about other projects “in the pipeline” of TxDOT. The authors would also like to thank the Directors, Area Engineers,
which in turn, allows area supervisors to be more effective and District Engineer for their contributions and feedback during the
with the proposed list of candidate highway projects. development of the GIS-based tool. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or
the recommendations presented in this paper are those of the authors and
do not necessarily reflect the views of TxDOT.
Conclusions
The maintenance and rehabilitation (M&R) planning Funding
process is complex; multiple sources of funding with re- This research project was sponsored by an Inter-Agency Contract (IAC) with
the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) with notable mention of
strictions, different planning periods, and multiple stake- the Fort Worth District. The principal investigators were Dr. William O’Brien
holders within and outside the DOT. For many DOTs — and Nabeel Khwaja. Most of the projects data were also obtained from TxDOT.
particularly with rapidly growing urban and metro areas
— the process is challenging to manage with existing Authors’ contributions
JFM made significant contributions to the concept and design of this research
toolsets and databases. This study reports on the use of study. This author also drafted a substantial portion of the manuscript and made
a GIS tool to integrate disparate data sources into a single, revisions to reflect pertinent intellectual content and comments from other
visual interface. The visualization tool makes identification authors during the internal review process. Furthermore, this author performed a
significant proportion of the data processing and data analysis tasks for this study.
of problems and opportunities more straightforward by; This author also agrees to be accountable for all aspects of this manuscript with
shortening the planning time and increasing the agency’s respect to the accuracy and integrity of the study. WOB drafted significant
abilities to make better use of limited funding. portions of the manuscript and provided insightful comments on the design and
structure of the research approach. Moreover, this author was involved in
The merits of GIS include valuable visualization, conducting critical revision of the manuscript to reflect important intellectual
contextualization of information, and integrated database content and the communication of the contributions of this study to the existing
management. This study has evaluated the benefits associ- body of knowledge. This author also gave final approval of the version to be
published and agrees to be accountable for all aspects of this manuscript with
ated with integrating highway projects data with GIS. It respect to the accuracy and integrity of the study. NK wrote a substantial part of
indicates that such integration efforts could be used to the manuscript and was active in the design and implementation of the research
better support construction and maintenance operations; approach. This author was also engaged in the critical revision of the manuscript.
Additionally, this author performed some of the data processing and data analysis
improve the planning process; save time and resources, tasks for this study. This author also gave final approval of the version to be
and ensure that accurate information is available to differ- published and agrees to be accountable for all aspects of this manuscript with
ent functional groups within the department. respect to the accuracy and integrity of the study. LCB was responsible for critical
revision of the manuscript to reflect key intellectual content and lead the
In this case study, the automation of data processing application of theoretical concepts in the study within a pragmatic construct. This
and geoprocessing of projects data was complicated by a author also facilitated access to pertinent data and made key contributions in the
myriad of data quality issues; including missing data, in- interpretation of the results from data analysis. This author also gave final approval
of the version to be published and agrees to be accountable for all aspects of this
accurate data, asymmetric data granularity, and semantic manuscript with respect to the accuracy and integrity of the study. All authors
interoperability issues. More work is needed to delineate read and approved the final manuscript.
France-Mensah et al. Visualization in Engineering (2017) 5:7 Page 17 of 17

Competing interests Medina, A., Flintsch, G., & Zaniewski, J. (1999). Geographic information systems-
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Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering, The
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78712-1094, USA. 2Center for Transportation Research, The University of three- and four-dimensional computer-aided design model applications for
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Department of Transportation (Fort Worth District), 2501 SW Loop 820, Fort Transportation Research Board, 2268(−1), 18–25.
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