GIS Based Route Guiding System for Optimal Path

Planning in

Disaster/Crisis Management

'AbdulFattah Chandio, 2Prof Liu Yu Shu, 3Noor Muhammad Memon, 4Attaullah Khawaja
1'2Department of Computer Sciences, 4Department of Electronics Beijing Institute of Technology, 5 Nandajie, Zhongguancun, Haidian, Beijing 100081, P.R. China 3Mohammad Ali Jinnah University, Jinnah Avenue, Blue Area, Islamabad, Pakistan 1fattahchandiogyahoo. com, 3mnoorgjinnah.edu.pk, 4atta_khawaja(yahoo.com

Abstract: Natural events on our earth such as landslides, earthquakes, floods and hurricanes can be hazardous human lives as well as man made social setups (buildings roads and other installations). In developing countries like Pakistan the destruction demonstrated in disasters resulted by natural hazards, is mostly lack of action to anticipate and mitigate the potential damage of these events. In disasters it is very much important to minimize the casualties and the damages to human lives caused by disasters. To do so it is necessary to start relief work and relief aid on time at the affected site. To supply the relief work and relief aid on the affected area, selection of suitable route is very much important. In this paper we presented a GIS based guiding system for route decision making. Path Planing, GIS, Disaster Management, Key words: Resource Distribution.

1. Introduction Computing shortest paths is a fundamental topic in computational geometry and arises in many applications [1]. The problem of path planning can be stated as finding a sequence of state transitions through a graph from some initial state to a goal state, or determining that no such sequence exists. The path is optimal if the sum of the transition costs, also called arc costs, is minimal across all possible sequences through the graph. If during the "traverse" of the path, one or more arc costs in the graph is discovered to be incorrect, the remaining portion of the path may need to be replanned to preserve optimality [2]. The problem of path planning is in general concerned with finding paths connecting different locations in an environment (e.g., a network, a graph, or a geometric space). Depending on the specific applications, the desired paths often need to satisfy certain constraints (e.g., obstacleavoiding) and optimize certain combinations of criteria (e.g., various distance metrics and cost functions). The problems of planning shortest paths arise in many disciplines, and in fact are one of the several most powerful tools for modeling combinatorial optimization problems. The problems like long-distance road traveling, where

successful route planning prior to traveling and en-route is essential to finding the optimal path from origin to destination. "Optimal" can take up many forms, such as shortest time, shortest distance, or least total cost [3]. In disasters lots of human lives and infra structures are destroyed, buildings are collapsed, social networks are destroyed, communication networks are destroyed, and roads, rails and other tracks of transportations are also destroyed. Too much panic is created everywhere large number of population and vehicles are rushing on the roads and tracks for safer places. In these kind of situations it is important to start and supply the relief work/aid timely. Most of the relief work and aid are supplemented from other parts of country to disaster affected area. Generally in disasters there two kinds of situations arising regarding the path planning for relief work * The general road and rail networks on the ground are destroyed. * The general road networks are preoccupied because panicked population rushing to safer places. In these situations the available paths sometimes became a bad an inefficient choice. One possible approach to solving shortest path problems would be to pre-calculate and store the shortest path from every node to every possible other node, which would allow us to answer a shortest path query in constant time. Unfortunately the required storage size and computation time grows with the square of the number of nodes. With realistic road networks in mind this processing would take years if not decades and be virtually impossible to store. Hence to overcome this problem we require real time search techniques [4]. For quick and efficient supply of relief aid the selection of paths from aid source to destination is important. For this problem realization of GIS based decision making system can be a good choice. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the construction of GIS based route guiding system to supplement the optimal path finding decisions for relief works in disasters/crises management situation.

1-4244-0794-X/06/$20.00 2006 IEEE

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Fig. 1

Route decision system

2.

Route guiding system

The guiding system consists of three integrated subsystems (see Fig. 1) * Map processing Function * Route decision function * Topology relationship function

2-1 Map processing Function. This is GIS based function that compile, store, retrieve, analyze, and display mapped data. Map data used are collected from existing maps, aerial photos, satellites, and other sources. A digitizer or similar device is used to convert compiled map data to a digital form in order to make it computer compatible. This transformation allows the storage, retrieval, and analysis of the mapped data to be performed by the computer and can be displayed. Functionality process is shown in Fig.2. 2-2 Route decision function This is core function of route guidance system. It stores the current location of user that can be resulted from map info process or input directly from user. It sets starting point and ending point. It comprises of path planning algorithms that can be used to decide the optimal path from start to end of journey. This function has following main functionalities; a) System interactive function of user included open, close GIS based files. Starting and ending points (routing goals). Restraint conditions that customizing the congestion, delay and other phenomenon that might be the obstacles in the route b) The interactive function between route program algorithms and geography information system, including map data. c) Rush avoiding function that based on structure and other constraint conditions related to that portion of network through which the user is passing by. Including the geographical data of that portion network.

Fig.2

Map Processing function

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The resource constrained shortest path problem (CSP) asks for the computation of a least cost path that obeying a set of resource constraints [5]. The rush avoiding function is based on restraint conditions about that portion of network. For example in big cities, at start and end of working hours, there is lots of traffic on the roads, or on the junctions of roads and rails. These kinds of restraint conditions can be stored alongwith with topological information of that portion of network. There are different kinds of restraint conditions, can be set with different level of priorities and it is not guaranteed that all conditions are satisfied. In fig.3 modular structure of rush avoiding path planning function is shown.

2-3 Topology relation ship Function: Topology relation ship Function used to describe how features share geometry; it is also the mechanism for establishing and maintaining topological relationships between features. Topology relation ship Function implements topology through a set of validation rules that define how features may share a geographic space, and a set of editing tools that work with features that share geometry in an integrated fashion. This function contains a set of tools that can be used to manage a topology. This function will assist the users about the ground address and its current locations.

Data flow structure

This system is a GIS based system and having three main modules (see Fig.4); * Map Info * Path planning * Topological Info. Whereas map info section consists of spatial database that includes the locational data (where things are located) and the spatial relationships between data features. The database can also be included additional relevant information.

Fig.4

Data Flow

4.

Conclusion

end)

Fig.3

Flow chart of obstacle avoiding route decision program

where, both, quick and guaranteed arrival of relief operation is too much important. In this system the role of SDB is

In this paper we presented the modular structure of route assisting system for path planning. There are enormous number of algorithms developed for path planning, use of those algorithms with constraint based rush or obstacle avoiding functions can guarantee the optimal path planning for user specially in case of crisis or hazards situations

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very much important especially in case of selecting other then traditional routes. For example in case of earth quakes or landslides road structures are destroyed in such condition geospatial database can help user to design new suitable path for destination. Online information is also plays important role in this function, for example online satellite imageries can inform user (traveler) about traffic congestions. 5. Acknowlegdment Authors are thankful to Department of Computer Sciences, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, PR China, for supervising this study.

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[4] Dr. Balqies Sadoun, "A Simulation Study for Automated Path Planning in Transportation Systems" SCSC2003, July2O-24, Montreal, Canada Anthony Stentz," The Focussed D* Algorithm for Real-Time Replanning" International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, August 1995. L.S. BURIOL, M.G.C. RESENDE, M. THORUP, "Speeding up Dynamic Shortest path Algorithms", AT&T Labs Research Technical Report TD-5RJ8B. September 19, 2003. Faramroze Engineer, "Fast Shortest Path Algorithms for Large Road Networks", Department of Engineering Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand Kurt Mehlhorn, Mark Ziegelmann "Resource Constrained Shortest Paths", M. Paterson (Ed.): ESA 2000, LNCS 1879, pp. 326-337,200

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