Description: Introduction The Arizona Transportation Information System (ATIS) is a geographic information system (GIS) centerline framework for presenting knowledge and inventory of roadways and associated features in Arizona. In its design, ATIS is a true centerline file of fully connective arc polylines which represents all linear transportation features, whether open to the public, administrative, or even barricaded from public use**. ATIS allows for connectivity among all elements that meet each other at-grade through a combination of arc-node-arc transitions (simple edges), and also supports arc-arc [without a connecting node] transitions (complex edges). ATIS is augmented by individual layers of reference points - mainly the invisible engineering stations and the visible reference markers (milepost and kilometer post and ramp identifier).However, ATIS supports any conceivable method of linear referencing including: from a milepost with a compass bearing distance from crossroad with a compass bearing distance from a jurisdictional boundary (city, county, tribal, state) with a compass bearing distance from an ownership boundary (federal lands, state lands, private lanes) with a compass bearing distance from a hydrographic feature (river centerline, watercourse edge) with a compass bearing distance from a railway with a compass bearing distance from an engineering station reference with a compass bearing and a stationing distance from a virtual boundary (PM-10, Ozone, urbanized area) boundary from a legal boundary (township, range, section line, or parcel line) with a compass bearing distance from a temporal vector (a bus/transit route using many different named streets and date-times, a construction zone which has a scheduled period of activity, a vehicular crash site which causes temporal congestion) with a compass bearing distance, and conventional street address matched geo-locating algorithms from a longitude-latitude or cartesian X/Y coordinate with or without an assigned carriageway (or road or route) name. The support for the wide variety of linear referencing methods (LRMs) enables ATISRDS as — what contemporary practitioners have come to call — a "multi-level linear referencing system" or a MLLRS. Arizona has been deploying MLLRS in its current form since the mid-1990s when business requirements of the Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) dictated the reporting of LRS attributes. History ATIS started as a vector base system for locating motor vehicle crash sites in 1975 ultimately functionally deployed in 1978. It was originally known as the ALISS centerline because it supported ADOT's Accident Location Identification Surveillance System. In 1991, it began a transition from a 1970sera IBM product to a newer ESRI format of a coverage model centerline maintained on Sun SPARCstation microcomputers. In 1998, the centerline took on the new name of ATIS to reflect its transition to an eventual geodatabase centerline that supported dozens of inventory themes, the original ISTEA management systems, a videolog vehicle, detour planning as well as the ALISS crash records. Commendations In the late 1990s, the ATIS project was a leading example among states with similar inventory cataloging needs in the advent and proliferation of geographical and linear referencing systems. Arizona’s GIS framework was a consistent topic of discussion at national and international gatherings of GIS and roadway professionals. In fact, by mid-1999, ATIS exemplified the ranking ideal of a statewide transportation information system as recognized by the only highway engineer on the National Transportation Safety Board.
Copyright Text: Arizona Department of Transportation MPD GIS Section 206 S. 17th Ave Phoenix, AZ 85007 Contact: James Meyer jmeyer@azdot.gov 602.712.8037
Arizona Dept of Transportation, Multimodal Planning Division, GIS Group