Extracting Horizontal Alignment Information from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Maps: A Clustering Approach

Roadway horizontal alignment data are crucial and necessary information for various safety analyses. Yet, more often than not this information is not readily available in states’ roadway inventory databases. The necessity of horizontal alignment dataset and the difficulties in obtaining it have become more apparent especially since the publication of the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) in 2010, after which there has been an increased interest by many states’ department of transportation (DOT) in the calibration of safety performance functions (SPF) provided in the manual. This webinar presents a reliable and efficient method for extracting road alignment data from GIS roadway maps and to present validation of the approach using actual alignment data.

Dr. Bekir Bartin is a full time Associate Professor in Civil Engineering Department at Ozyeğin University in Istanbul, Turkey. Prior to his current position he was the founding chair at Civil Engineering Department at Altınbaş University (formerly Istanbul Kemerburgaz University). Dr. Bartin worked as a full-time research associate at Rutgers University from 2006 to 2012, where he conducted research projects, supervised a team of graduate students, and taught graduate and undergraduate courses. He has a Ph.D. (’06) and M.Sc. (’00) in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Rutgers University, and a B.Sc. (‘97) in Civil Engineering from Middle East Technical University. His research expertise lies in development of simulation models of large scale complex transportation systems, application of reinforcement learning methods in traffic simulation, economic evaluation of transportation investment projects, traffic safety and security. He has served as the principal and co-principal investigator of more than 20 research projects. Dr. Bartin has published 33 peer-reviewed journal articles, 2 book chapters and nearly 50 conference proceedings. He is an affiliate of the C2SMART center, a first tier University Transportation Center at New York University (NYU), funded by the U.S Department of Transportation.

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