A GIS-based and multimedia integrated infrastructure management system

Transportation and public works agencies are currently challenged by increasing demands for better services and constraining budgets to maintain municipal infrastructures in good condition. Better information and management systems are therefore in urgent need to support more effective and efficient decision-making. An Infrastructure Management System (IMS) is such a system capable of properly coordinating, systematically evaluating, and effectively maintaining basic service-related infrastructure systems. The objective of this research is to develop a new IMS framework--a GIS based and multimedia integrated IMS--Visual IMS. The distinctive feature of Visual IMS is its capability of handling a wide variety of data and information visually, analyze them spatially, and present the results graphically. Major efforts under this study include: (1) defining the system requirements for infrastructure management and designing the conceptual framework of Visual IMS; (2) using such concepts and techniques as fuzzy sets and system optimization to develop generic models for the optimization of budget allocations, the selection of candidate projects for maintenance and rehabilitation, the prediction of infrastructure performances, and the conduction of proximity analyses; (3) exploring the potential applications of multimedia, client/server architecture, Global Positioning System (GPS), and their seamless integration with GIS; and (4) coding the Visual IMS computer program to implement the developed models and to demonstrate the concepts and processes introduced under this study.