CREATING AN INFORMATION SYSTEM TO INTEGRATE REMOTE SENSING 
DATA WITH GIS DATA FOR RAILWAY DESIGN 
Xie Wei 
Southwest Jiaotong University 
Chengdu, Sichuan 
The People’ s Republic of China 
WG IV/5 
ABSTRACT 
In the mid- 1970s the Chinese Railway Administration began to use remote sensing data for 
railway design. Many successful samples showed that using remote sensing data for railway design 
was the most effective and economical alternative. The remote sensing data can provide rich 
geographic information such as geologic, hydrologic and vegetative data. However, the railway 
design is a very complex procedure. Only using remote sensing data can not satisfy the 
reguirements of the engineering design. The main reason is the lack of accuracy of remote sensing 
data in both classification and position. Recently, the geographic information system (GIS) has 
been recognized as effective and utilizable to prepare basic data for engineering design. This paper 
describes how to build an automatic railway design system, how to integrate remote sensing data 
and GIS data to choose the best railway line. A case study in southwest China has shown how to 
choose the data structure and data informative layers. Some suggestions have been made for 
improving the accuracy of the information system. 
KEY WORDS; Remote sensing, GIS, Integrate, Classification, Railway Design. 
INTRODUCTION the surface of the earth changes rapidly, especially by 
human interference. The field investegation of the 
railway line has to be done again. These spend a lot of 
The railway designer is increasingly using 
various types and sources of spatial information to 
select an optimum railway line. This has created a 
demand for an integration of the GIS data and remote 
sensing data within the same system. Although many 
general purpose GIS 
available, they are very expensive and can hardly 
satisfy the requirements of the railway design. 
This research work try to establish an 
information system to solve the practical problem. 
This GIS system can improve the analysis of the 
spatial image data, quarantee the railway design 
accuracy and store the engineering database for long 
time. Reversely, the image data can update the GIS 
data in an automatic way. The designer can grasp the 
present condition of nature. 
In developing countries, after a new railway line 
has been selected, in some reason, the railway line 
cannot be constructed, or original plan has been 
canceled. After several years, the authority requires 
to build the railway as soon as possible. Although the 
topography can not be changed, the phenomena on 
systems are  commercialy 
735 
money and time. If we stored the original engineering 
data in this system, the remote sensing data can 
provide the newest information on the surface of the 
earth to update the GIS data. This system can rapidly 
provide the basic accuracy data for railway design. 
The purpose of this research work is creating an 
information system to integrate remote sensing data 
with GIS data for railway design. This project 
supported by the railway ministry of the People! s 
Republic of China. 
STUDY AREA AND DATA 
The study area is located in the west of Xi' an 
city in Shaanxi province. This area includes urban 
area of Xi’ an city, and Qinling mountain. The trains 
are very difficult to pass through this area. Along the 
railway line it needs to build a lot of tunnels and 
bridges. Within the study area are very complex 
vegetation The transportation is 
difficult. 
cover. very