GIS in transportation modeling: merging MINUTP with GIS

Transportation system modeling involves a great deal of information on features which are geographically distributed over a study area. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are suited to managing and displaying such information. In a study for the Centre Region of Pennsylvania, the authors effectively utilized the MapInfo GIS in conjunction with the MINUTP transportation modeling system. This provided greatly enhanced abilities to construct the transportation model, and to view and comprehend the input, output and structure of the model. The success of the Centre study has led the authors to develop an 'application oriented' software package focused on the techniques and terminology employed by transportation modelers. The advantages of this approach, as compared with the use of general purpose GIS for transportation modeling are discussed.