APEC GIT Meeting and Mapping Recovery Act Expenditures

June 21, 2010 By: Eric Gakstatter

GSS Weekly Newsletter

This week I’m attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Meeting of the GNSS Implementation Team in Seattle. The focus of this meeting is on intermodal GNSS/GPS applications in transportation. Of course, GNSS/GPS is only the positioning part of the equation. Geospatial data and software is the other part, whether its road, rail, marine or aviation. Also, I was pointed to a cool website created by the State of Oregon to track economic stimulus dollar spending.

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation GNSS Implementation Team (APEC GIT) was established in 2000. It is co-chaired by Karen Van Dyke of the U.S. Department of Transportation and Noppadol Pringvanich of Thailand’s Ministry of Transport. According to its website, the APEC GIT’s purpose is to “promote the implementation of regional GNSS augmentation systems to enhance intermodal transportation and recommend actions to be considered by the Advisory Committee in the Asia Pacific Region.”

Furthermore, the APEC mission, according to its website, includes:

Facilitate Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) applications to support seamless intermodal transportation to enhance safety, security, and sustainability in line with the APEC Transportation Ministerial Directives.
Identify actions to facilitate and collaborate on implementations of GNSS applications for transportation in the APEC region, complementing, but not duplicating, the work of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Maritime Organization (IMO), and the International Committee on GNSS (ICG); and
Provide a public/industry forum to address GNSS technologies related to transportation issues that will benefit the APEC region (including non-APEC economies and international organizations).

The transportation infrastructure applications for geospatial data, equipment, and software is enormous. Although the focus of the APEC GIT meetings are to promote the use of GNSS, GNSS is only one part of the equation in transportation. Without geospatial data and software to accompany leverage GNSS positioning, GNSS receivers are relatively useless to the average user. I’ll give you an example.

Several years ago I was shown one of the first handheld GPS units. It was super high-tech at that time because there weren’t that many handheld GPS units available in the commercial market. Theprimary information on the display was latitude, longitude, and altitude, simple text on a monochrome LCD such as

44’ 33” 12.4123
-123’ 15” 23.2134
95.43 ft

There were no street map or background maps of any kind on the unit. There was no frame of reference as to where I was located on the Earth. At that time, GPS receivers were novelty items for a select-few hobbyists. The problems is, who cares about a text display of latitude/longitude? Only when navigation software and data were added did the average consumer see the benefit of spending a few hundred dollars on a GPS navigation unit.

My point is that there are thousands of applications for GNSS receivers in transportation, but only when there is application software and geospatial data to support them can GNSS receivers (or other positioning technology) really be implemented in road, rail, marine, and aviation applications.

I’ll be blogging from the APEC GIT meeting this week, so be sure to check the Geospatial Solutions website. At the meeting, I’m also giving a presentation on WAAS/SBAS being used for GIS mapping. I’ll post a link to my presentation in my blog.

Mapping Economic Stimulus Dollar Expenditures

The State of Oregon has a cool GIS site that maps the spending of economic stimulus dollars (Federal Recovery Act). More impressive than the site may be the effort it took to coordinate the various state agencies and convince them to submit data on how they are spending the Federal Recovery Act dollars. Data is submitted on the 10th of the month for the quarter. The State of Oregon’s Statewide GIS Coordinator’s office receives the data, compiles it, and posts it on the website.

"The Recovery Act in Oregon" website.

Details provided at the county level.

Details provided at the project leve.

You can visit the State of Oregon Recovery Act website here.

Free Webinar on June 24

On June 24, Geospatial Solutions will be conducting a free 60-minute webinar, moderated by me, on "GIS Mapping for Forestry, Agriculture, and Other Natural Resource Professionals." I will discuss GIS mapping software tools/concepts/techniques as well as GIS mapping hardware such as GPS receivers, digital cameras, and laser rangefinders. Although focused on natural resources, it will be relevant for all people interested in GIS mapping, which could be utility companies, municipalities, transportation organizations, etc. Sign up now by clicking here and submit questions in advance.

Thanks, and see you next week.

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