ry 
Rp re. CP 
Jeyapalan, Kandiah 
  
GIS FOR ROADSIDE FEATURES IN RURAL, URBAN AND METROPOLITAN AREA BY TOTAL 
STATION AND DGPS 
According to the survey done by an ISU research team [1], for counties, cities and state DOT the first 15 highest 
priority road side features are: Intersections , signs , pavement markings , signals , curbs , guard rail , number of lanes , 
rail road crossings , shoulders, side walk , road names, pavement distress, roadway geometric, bridges and Right of 
way. It is clear from these responses that a GIS showing all roadside features will be valuable information for their 
inventory, maintenance, transportation studies and improvement. 
For this study one urban area, WA-1, a metropolitan area, and a rural area, OR-5, are chosen. The WA-1 , urban area, 
can be easily done with 
DGPS, as it is free of 
obstruction by trees, 
buildings, power lines 
etc. Trimble Pro-XL with 
GPS Survey map 
Site 22 ( WA-1) 
Point Features 
ox 
Bus Stop Shelter 
over 
Hydrant TDCI Asset Surveyor 
ü Mail . 
« Max and  Trimble Pro-XR 
ü Power Box > 
= Sign with TDCI asset 
« Tel Box fi i 
mad tes surveyor, fig (1) are 
et pam used. These are rover 
dem m i ith 
ipi ie receivers with accuracy 
  
unknown 
300 0 300 . 600 Feet ^ 
Fig 2. GPS Map 
of about + 1ft, and can 
be used for mapping 
features at 1" — 50' in an 
urban area. These units 
were used to locate point 
features such as light 
poles, fire hydrants, by 
way of a walking survey, 
and line features such as road lanes, bike path by using a truck mounted attachment. Data collected by the TDCI data 
collector were processed using the GPS base station data, which were collected by US Forestry Department, Portland, 
OR. The processed data were then used to create Autocad drawing files which were then used in Arc/Info to produce 
the GIS base map and attribute tables. See fig 2 and table 1. 
  
  
  
Fig 1. ProXL 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Point # X-coord (ft) Y-coord (ft) Elevation above msl (ft) Feature Type 
1 1119185.352 107859.526 291.969 Hydrant 
2 1119184.699 107862.360 291.541 TC 
3 1119255.498 107815.008 292.369 Sign 
14 1119450.474 107676.838 293.517 Hydrant 
15 1119509.633 107654.287 294.412 Tel Box 
20 1119610.049 107616.024 292.147 Manhole 
21 1119612.090 107621.900 291.859 Cover 
28 1120144.488 107448.503 295.483 Power Box 
32 1120231.574 107436.708 286.983 Box 
33 1120244.465 107447.518 293.290 Mail Box 
39 1120156.456 107501.810 291.793 Light Pole 
83 1120138.182 107551.333 295.957 Bus Stop Shelter 
  
  
  
  
  
Table 1. Attribute 
OR-5 is a rural road and DGPS with an accuracy of + 1ft is suitable for mapping at a scale of 1" — 100'. However 
because of tall trees and winding roads, fig (3), the DGPS cannot be used. A Total Sation traverse loop was used to 
determine the location of the features. Initially, the Total Station traverse was done on an arbitrary local coordinate 
system (10,000; 10,000). From the traverse stations, the locations of the features were collected by walking survey 
using the Total Station reflector rod and a data collector similar to the DGPS survey. In order to transform the local 
  
International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. Vol. XXXIII, Part B5. Amsterdam 2000. 407