USING GIS TECHNOLOGY FOR RAILWAY DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT
XIE WEI
Professor of Southwest Jiaotong University
Chengdu, Sichuan 610031 PRC.
Commission IV , Working Group 1
KEY WORDS: RGIS, Management, Monitoring, Remote Sensing , Spatial Analysis, Design.
ABSTRACT:
Railway system is a big business in China. It includes railway line design, build, management and main-
tance. Railway Ministry is the earlist one of using phogrammetry and remote sensing data for railway design.
To select an optimum railway line, keep the best transportation condition, the geologic, hydrologic, vegeta-
tive, landform, political and social factors ...etc. are comprehensively investigated with a wide view. The
Railway Ministry require using GIS technology to establish a national Railway Geographic Information Sys-
tem (RGIS) in 5 years. Some RGIS model are beginning to study in different railway units.
This paper presents a new development of RGIS. Two spatial analysis model are used :
One is the automatic new railway line selected system. Using CAD technique, selecting the new railway line
on the computer monitor screen can save a lot of money and survey time.
The second spatial analysis model is to decide the optimum transportation path. Using Voronoi diagram tech-
nique find the shortest transportation path and lowest cost transportation path to save the transportation time
and money.
Some suggestions have been made for improving the two spatial analysis systems.
1. Introduction
Compared with the first railway build in the world,
China was half a century late in building hers. Dur-
ing the 73 years from 1876 when she started con-
structing it to 1949 when the People's Republic was
founded, only 21000 kilometers of railway were
constructed in China, averaging less than 300 kilo-
meters built per year and these were irrationally dis-
tributed as concentrating mainly in the northeastern
part and the coastal province of the country. By
1949 only 11000 kilometers of them were barely se-
viceable.
Since 1949 railway construction has developed
quickly. Averaging more than 1000 kilometers built
annually in the past forty years. A national railway
transport network undertaking about 70% percent
of freight transportation of the country is formed,
playing a vital part in the development of the
country's national economy. Now the Railway Min-
istry plans to use the power of modern computers
and associated developments in Railway Geographic
Information System (RGIS) to integrate and select-
ed availuable information derived from spatial data
acquired in different formats from a wide variety of
souces to inprove the transportation and manage-
ment conditions. Establishing national computer
network system connect several thousand railway u-
nits. It includes Railway Ministry office, province
railwayadministrations, local railway administra-
tions, railway stations, rolling stock plants, brige-
girders plants, ...etc. This is a big computer net-
work engineering projects. It will take a long time
and much money. The Railway Ministry provide
the financial support to establish the computer net-
Work in 5 years. This research work is the one of
the RGIS program. Two spatial analysis model are
present. This project supported by the Railway
Ministry of the People's Republic of China.
2. Automatic New Railway Line Selected System
In China, there are more than two thousant kilome-
ters new railway line need to design every year. Al-
most hundred surveying teams work in the field for
reconnaissance surveys. A railway alignment, al-
though narrow in itself, can only be selected after
an appraisal has been made of a very large area of
land. It spend a lot of time and labours. Using re-
mote sensing data and GIS techniques is ideal for
978
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