Infrastructure Engineering - Theses
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ItemThe effective implementation of GIS in local government using diffusion theory( 2001-06)Geographical Information Systems (GIS) are proving difficult to both define and effectively implement in Victorian Local Government. Current innovation diffusion theory, and emerging GIS and IS implementation theory are used to develop a framework for the implementation of either a new GIS, or for improving a currently ineffective GIS. The thesis describes a method of practically redefining GIS in the Local Government environment and then applying diffusion principles during the implementation of GIS. The first area of new investigation in the thesis is the approach to defining the GIS requirements of Local Government. In this thesis, GIS in Local Government is defined by starting with the business requirements and then letting them define the high level technical and functional requirements. This obtains a different answer from the traditional approach of assuming that current generic high level technical and functional definitions of GIS are correct, and that implementation is a selection and fine tuning process. The new approach is based mainly on the “productional perspective”; developed in recent theoretical GIS diffusion studies. The major difference is that GIS implementation in Local Government does not necessarily include the requirement for the design and construction of a specific GIS database. The GIS simply consists of graphical maps that spatially index and read existing non spatial databases within the Local Government IS environment. (For complete abstract open document)
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ItemDecision-making under spatial uncertainty( 2005)Errors are inherent to all spatial datasets and give rise to a level of uncertainty in the final product of a geographic information system (GIS). There is growing recognition that the uncertainty associated with spatial information should be represented to users in a comprehensive and unambiguous way. However, the effects on decision-making of such representations have not been thoroughly investigated. Studies from the psychological literature indicate decision-making biases when information is uncertain. This study explores the effects of representing spatial uncertainty, through an examination of how decision-making may be affected by the introduction of thematic uncertainty and an investigation of the effects of different representations of positional uncertainty on decision-making. Two case studies are presented. The first of these considers the effects on decision-making of including thematic uncertainty information within the context of an airport siting decision task. An extremely significant tendency to select a zone for which the thematic classification is known to be of high certainty was observed. The reluctance to select a zone for which the thematic classification is of low certainty was strong enough to sometimes lead to decision-making that can only be described as irrational. The second case study investigates how decision-making may be affected by different representations of positional uncertainty within the context of maritime navigation. The same uncertainty information was presented to participants using four different display methods. Significant differences in their decisions were observed. Strong preferences for certain display methods were also exhibited, with some representations being ranked significantly higher than others. The findings from these preliminary studies demonstrate that the inclusion of uncertainty information does influence decision-making but does not necessarily lead to better decisions. A bias against information of low certainty was observed, sometimes leading to the making of irrational decisions. In addition, the form of uncertainty representation itself may affect decision-making. Further research into the effects on decision-making of representing spatial uncertainty is needed before it can be assumed that the inclusion of such information will lead to more informed decisions being made.
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ItemDevelopment of a knowledge base for low-volume roads using a geographic information system( 2011)Currently each State Jurisdiction holds significant expenditure and road section activity data which are in varying formats and classifications. A Knowledge Management technique can extract differing data sets across multi-criteria in order to build up comprehensive data sets. Potentially this sound knowledge base can make more precise analysis and strategic decisions for low-volume roads. Geographic Information System (GIS) has been used in this research as the platform of this knowledge base due to its powerful data integration ability. One GIS software (TransCAD) has been chosen to combine all the existing data and also to estimate the traffic data as the available data is insufficient on building up such a knowledge base. Using traffic assignment and matrix estimation techniques, traffic volume data can be estimated from limited data source to produce a more comprehensive database. Nevertheless, not all the traffic assignment techniques have been tested and matrix estimation result cannot be validated until real data are acquired. It provides an approach when developing such a knowledge base, and with more input, results can be improved and a sound knowledge base is ready to be built.