Transport or transportation is the movement of people and goods from one place to

another. The term is derived from the Latin trans ("across") and portare ("to carry").

Aspects of transport

The field of transport has several aspects: loosely they can be divided into a triad of
infrastructure, vehicles, and operations. Infrastructure includes the transport networks
(roads, railways, airways, waterways, canals, pipelines, etc.) that are used, as well as
the nodes or terminals (such as airports, railway stations, bus stations and seaports).
The vehicles generally ride on the networks, such as automobiles, bicycles, buses,
trains, aircrafts. The operations deal with the way the vehicles are operated on the
network and the procedures set for this purpose including the legal environment (Laws,
Codes, Regulations, etc.) Policies, such as how to finance the system (for example, the
use of tolls or gasoline taxes) may be considered part of the operations

Broadly speaking, the design of networks are the domain of civil engineering and urban
planning, the design of vehicles of mechanical engineering and specialized subfields
such as nautical engineering and aerospace engineering, and the operations are usually
specialized, though might appropriately belong to operations research or systems
engineering

Highway Features and Characteristics Using Remote Sensing, Mobile Mapping,

GIS, GPS

Remote sensing technologies have been increasingly used in transportation applications

in recent years. The key driving forces in the use of these technologies include the
increasing data acquisition speed and decreasing cost, the rapid advancement of softcopy
image processing technology, and the ever growing demands for more accurate,
comprehensive, and updated data. Digital cameras and various types of digital scanning
devices play a key role in reducing the cost and the time for data acquisition.
Technologies for rapid geo-referencing for remote sensors also contribute significantly to
cost reduction and speed increases. In particular, the combined use of Global Position
Systems (GPS) and Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) makes automatic image orientation
possible, a task that is traditionally realized through the use of extensive field control
points.

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), through its Research and Special
Programs Administration (RSPA), has encouraged increased usage and application of
technology to the highway inventory process. As part of this effort, RSPA promoted and
funded a program to study remote sensing applications for the Florida Department of
Transportation (FDOT) Roadway Characteristics Inventory (RCI) activities. The Oak
Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Center for Transportation Analysis partnered with
the FDOT for this project for a feasibility study regarding Highway Feature and
Characteristics Database Development using Commercial Remote Sensing Technologies,
combined with Mobile Mapping, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Global
Positioning Systems (GPS).
The specific objectives of the project include the following:

1. Implement integrated remote sensing solutions to develop an accurate and

comprehensive Roadway Characteristics Inventory for selected study road
sections meeting Florida DOT’s production requirements.
2. Assess the practical applicability of the proposed technologies with respect to
their effectiveness, accuracy, fitness, and ease of implementation.
3. Document the commercial remote sensing products, implementation procedures,
and technical approaches used in the project.
4. Recommend future project activities and feedback to the research and industry
communities for technological enhancement.

By design, “The Highway Features and Characteristics Database Development Using

Commercial Remote Sensing, Mobile Mapping, GIS and GPS Project” is limited to the
development of data for the FDOT’s RCI database, as contrasted to other types of data
such as traffic flow information. State DOT data requirements vary from state to state, so
a list of features of interest to FDOT Planning was identified. In addition, the project is
limited to technologies generally available to the Department that could be rationally
implemented rather than exotic applications requiring excessive equipment or personnel
costs.

The following techniques were chosen for examination:

• Aerial Photography
• Satellite Imagery
• Video Logging
• Mobile Mapping
• Field Data Collection

Although remote sensing, mobile mapping and GPS have been separately utilized for
transportation data collection, an integrated approach applied to a detailed roadway and
roadway feature database development has not been fully investigated. The project
provided an operational test of such an integrated approach. This test allowed the
researchers : (a) to draw some basic conclusions about the feasibility of the integrated use
of remote sensing, mobile mapping, GIS and GPS technologies for the purpose of
infrastructure database development, and (b) to assess and compare the functionality of
these technologies and their applicability in real world applications.