There are several cases of poor transport services in Uganda that are caused by the bad state of roads. Road maintenance proved ad hoc until recently when the need for preventive maintenance was recognised and plans of making it a priority put in place.
Since roads are geographically located, the use of Geographical Information Technologies (GITs) in collecting, managing and analysing road condition is paramount. And yet, these technologies are under-utilized for road maintenance. This paper derives from research aimed at accentuating the use of GITs for Road Infrastructure Maintenance (RIM) in Uganda.
The research addressed three objectives namely to:
- Access the gaps and limitations in GIT use and access for RIM,
- Develop a methodological framework for enhancing the use of GITs in RIM
- Develop a Geographical Information Systems for Transportation (GIS-T) data model for RIM in Uganda.
In line with the 3rd objective, the paper specifically presents an object data model for RIM. This was accomplished through identification of road maintenance data requirements, review of: organisational reports, workshop proceedings, organisational terms of reference for various projects and existing data models & standards in transportation. An understanding and consideration of the Information Quality Levels (IQL) was paramount. This resulted into a conceptual and logical data model for RIM based on concepts of dynamic segmentation (Dynseg) and linear referencing. The conceptual model depicted using entity relationship diagrams identifies with 3 entities – the road’s network and the point & line events that exist on it. Besides logically documenting the various classes from the conceptual data model, the ESRI provided template for logical data modelling was used. The model separately emphasizes objects having spatial reference, objects without spatial reference and the relationships between them.
The study concludes that a common definition and understanding of the country’s transportation network is essential to adoption of the proposed model. The choice of GIS software with the full set of dynseg tools is fundamental for implementation of the physical model. This idea of modelling data is a contribution to standardisation of geographic datasets for the sector.
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This post was written by Lydia Mazzi Kayondo – Ndandiko. Contact her at lndandiko@gmail.com for more information.
