RITES Ltd. (A Government of India Enterprise)

RITES Ltd. (A Government of India Enterprise)

USE OF GIS IN RITES LTD. FOR UTILITIES

Presented by

P. K. ChoudharyGM/MRTS

RITES Ltd.On 19.01.2011


GIS has got many applications. RITES Ltd. has been using GIS for different projects. For design of road, rail road and metro alignment, we use satellite imageries of required resolution, geo-reference it and use software such as Bentley’s Alignment Design software. We have also been using GIS for study of ports, inland waterways, other water resources projects and hydro-electric projects. Real time kinematic differential GPS with WGS-84 system is also becoming more and more useful for survey work.


All these studies require locating utilities wherever they are required to be diverted for the construction of new project. This has to be done fairly accurately. GIS is of immense help in achieving this objective


A geographic information system (GIS) is a language for communicating content and

processes for the utility business. People working in the utility industry need a better understanding of the context of change, what it means, and how they can manage their present and their future. They needbetter information and a framework for understanding and collaboration. As utilities merge and staff shrink, sharing workflows in an automated and systematic way is vital. The enterprise GIS platform facilitates collaboration by unifying the underlying data infrastructure and workflows with other key utility information system (IS) platforms such as SCADA;enterprise resource planning (ERP); asset, work, and outage management; and field force automation.


GIS is used to apply geospatial information to a host of utility applications. As a result, GIS is helping utilities unify by integrating information from many sources, both internal and external, into a common framework. By using this common geographic language, utility managers discover new insights that they can transform into tangible business results such as lower costs, improved asset utilization, and quicker customer hookup. New technology such as Web services, location-based services, geo-processing, looselyconnected distributed spatial databases, smart clients, and intelligent GIS unifies information for utility executives, managers, and operators. Decision making, communication, and asset management can be based on the same information throughout the organization. This white paper discusses some of the ongoing issues still facing utilities and GIS technology's impact on utility management, operations, and engineering.


In today’s competitive world, a successful utility must take maximum advantage of its resources, from people to equipment to information. Using GIS to integrate with other corporate data has become absolutely vital to this task.GIS is also invaluable to public utility agencies in preparation of a map. The map can depict the underground utilities. Such maps are important reference tools that help guide construction digging to avoid underground hazards. The map can show streets and all pertinent utility information such as type size and depth. Each utility is depicted with a separate colour. GIS provides much more than a map; it uses geography to provide the framework for all the activities and components of a utility’s business.

USE OF GIS IN RITES LTD. FOR UTILITIESAutomated Mapping/Facilities management

Many utilities have discovered the importance of GIS for improving day-to-day operations. GIS can be used to closely model utility networks and integrate other, related types of data, such as raster images and CAD drawings. GIS spatial selection and display tools allow users to visualize scheduled work, ongoing activities, recurring maintenance problems and historical information.

The topological characteristics of a GIS database can support network tracing and can be used to analyze specific properties or services that may be impacted by such events as service stoppages, main breaks, power outages, and others.


GIS can perform many other operations and maintenance tasks including work order and warehouse inventory management, distribution analysis, system prototyping, and network monitoring and SCADA.

Economic development is a broad subject encompassing many business segments, usually a government agency or supporting service company, but it can also include utilities. If we consider the definition of economic development to be the improvement of land and infrastructure for the benefit of the community as a whole, it is clear that utilities have a key role to play. Without the participation of utilities, the fundamental services required to support development will be external to the development

process and thus may limit the likelihood of success.


Traffic and Transportation Engineers use GIS as both a presentational and analytical tool.

GIS can help with providing more readily understandable material for the lay-person by producing outputs with geographical interfaces (for example regarding accessibility, journey time savings, improved capacity, and other modeling outputs) - it provides a tool for communication and may help "sell" a scheme to stakeholders, or certainly inform on it, in a more easily digestible manner.

For a traffic engineer, the entire data base and asset management programs are tied to GIS. They use it in signs, markings, signals and equipment and it plays an integral role in the operation - mostly as it pertains to

maintenance.

In terms of technical assistance GIS can be used to develop complex transport models - by building zoning and network detail, looking at demographic and economic projections going forward to assist in informing "future year models" and so on.


From a research perspective, GIS is a valuable tool when one is trying to generate crash prediction models for a region based on the demographic and land use characteristics. It provides you options to capture this information around the crashes, and very often we find patterns that are evident. Once you analyze these patterns, one could rank intersections or midblock locations and accordingly allocate funding to the hazardous locations.

Apart from this, GIS can be very useful in capturing spatial data to determine future ridership numbers based on the change in land use characteristics, TransCad is an extension of GIS that can be very useful for planners.


The GIS in Cube is an extremely powerful transportation GIS system that is directly compliant with ESRI technologies and provides many of ArcGIS’s capabilities, for example, on-the fly projections.

There are several reasons behind out decisions to move to GIS: - Data editing

- Data presentation

- Geoprocessing

- Projections

- Sharing the data with GIS department

- And more…


All in all, GIS is a fundamental element of state of the art software solutions for transportation planning and traffic engineering, and the more the two “families” are integrated , the better results we, as transportation planners, we’ll get and the more our job will be understandable and, hopefully, appreciated!

David Fletcher's pioneering work on dynamic segmentation, provided the foundation to build a true roadway information system. Prior to that, GIS was pretty much just synonymous with land information systems. Improvements/developments came pretty fast and steadily after this


An interesting application of GIS in the area of Railways by RITES has been the analysis of various railway design parameters spatially to arrive at the best possible alignment between

two locations.


Another important application of GIS is preparing various thematic maps using satellites imageries. RITES Ltd. has recently undertaken the work of DDC for solution to heavy seepage in railway tunnel T-3 between Udhampur and Katra in the state of J&K under Northern Railway. H.P. Remote Sensing Cell was asked by RITES to undertake the geotechnical study for this area using the latest high-resolution remote sensing satellite imageries followed by ground truth surveys. The tunnel is constructed mainly in the Shiwalik rock formation of the north-west Himalayan region and across major drainage network. The construction of tunnel in such a fragile formation has been a real challenge. The study was done to achieve the following objectives:


To prepare a geo-morphological map at the scale of 1:10,000.

To delineate significant lineament and other geological discontinuities of significance.

To assess the impact of geo-morphology and morpho-tectonics on the engineering interventions.


Analysis of multi-spectral and multi-temporal satellite images was carried out. Analysis was attempted at two levels i.e. at regional and at local level for specific location. For regional level analysis IRS-LISS-III data at the scale of 1:50,000 with a resolution of 23.5 metres were used. This was followed by the delineation of precision geo-coded IRS-P6, LISS-IV Multi-Spectral as well as high resolution Ortho-rectified CARTOSAT-I satellite data.













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