Exhibition of Planning Software and Planning Support Systems Research
Tracking Your Every Move
by Joseph Ferreira
GPS, GIS, wireless networking, and microelectronic sensors are enabling us to monitor all kinds of urban activity. Realtime, online tracking of vehicles is one example that has begun to take off. We’ll display and demonstrate two types of onboard tracking devices that use GPS, cell phone technology, and the internet to track automobiles and map their position in real time. One of the units (being tested for use in NHTSA crash studies) also has accelerometers, gyros, and other onboard sensors to measure emissions, fuel mileage, etc. In our case, we’ll be putting 2000+ units in Boston metro autos for a three-year study examining the potential benefits of pricing auto insurance based on when and where you drive (rather than as a flat annual fee).
These technologies give new meaning to the term ‘wired city’ as well as the phrase ‘big brother’. They provide new opportunities for planning, controlling and coordinating urban activity and new concerns about privacy and security. We’ll look at the technology and discuss some of the implications.
Exploring Spatial Relationships in Public Housing
by Lorlene Hoyt
This demonstration begins with a brief overview of the Philadelphia Housing Authority and its three principal housing programs (Conventional Sites, Scattered Sites, and Section 8). Using ArcView, Spatial Analyst, and 3-D Analyst, we compare the spatial distribution of housing units in each program throughout the city. These visual examinations allow us to detect spatial patterns and generate research hypotheses. Finally, this demonstration speaks to the role of S-Plus for ArcView as a tool for testing such hypotheses.
MAPC Web-Based GIS Tool
by Myoung-Gu Kang
There is a lot of space-related information over the world, and more information – including atlas, geography, socio-economic geography, geology, oceanography, orthophotos, and so forth – keeps becoming open to the public. However, to utilize the data, users have to have certain software, which still requires much money and training. Secondly, it’s not easy to integrate the data in various formats from different sources. These concerns are motivating the development of the technical infrastructure for open distributed and component-based geoprocessing.
The MAPC web-based GIS tool is one of these attempts. The development of MAPC web-based GIS tool has two parts. One is setting up an interoperable GIS Server with MapServer, an OpenSource development environment for building spatially enabled Internet applications. The other is Web interface to integrate the MapServer and the MIT Ortho Server. It’s written in Perl, a server-side script language.
With the MAPC web-based GIS tool, users can see the road system, water bodies, boundaries, MBTA lines, etc, on top of orthophotos. They also can zoom in/out and re-center, and turn on/off the available layers.
HAP: Urban Hinterland Analysis Package
by Jinhua Zhao
This demo is about the modeling of the spatial structure and interaction between the cities in the urban system. This research focuses on the model of the influence of cities on ex-urbia. Software was developed to assist the analysis of the influence of the cities in the urban system. Case studies on several urban systems in China were carried out to demonstrate how this tool could help in the analysis of the spatial relationship in the urban system. The software and the case studies will be presented during the demo.
