Using GIS to Manage the Redlands Bicycle Classic

This is Marilyn Dreuker's MSGIS Major Individual Project from 2003.

For 19 years, the City of Redlands has been hosting the Redlands Bicycle
Classic which is considered one of the most fun races in the U. S. by some
cyclists. This national event has endured longer than any other cycling event in
the U. S. For 6 days, this professional cyclistsí race takes place not only in
Redlands, but also in the cities of Riverside, Highland, and Yucaipa. The race in
April 2003 had almost 250 riders covering a total distance of approximately 348
miles for the menís races and 280 miles for the womenís races. There were nearly
1000 volunteers and an estimate of 50,000 spectators. (Oberjuerge 2003).
There is no question that credit for the raceís success has to be given to the
race committee, made up of the Redlandsí community and the police department.
Their well-organized efforts to run things smoothly makes the race enjoyable for
everyone. But to plan such a big event as the Bicycle Classic, especially
managing the number of people involved and the associated problems, takes a
great deal of time and effort. Everyone would benefit if there is a more efficient,
easier way to manage security, spectators, traffic, and road closures when planning
for this type of event.
This project addresses a better way to solve this planning problem by using
GIS to integrate the data, visually display the information on maps and perform
visual and spatial analysis of the integrated data sets. Using GIS, the police
department can improve the effectiveness of the planning by displaying the
integrated data on a map to see where problems have occurred or are likely to
occur. Visual or spatial analysis can help with planning the logistics of the event,
planning for security and medical emergencies, easing traffic problems, and
maintaining order.
This report communicates how GIS can be used as a tool to help with the
planning and implementation tasks. It begins by looking at other GIS applications
that relate to this activity. It then provides a concise look at the goals, scope and
objectives of this project and specifies the design, development and analysis that
were taken to address the issues. The report contains the products that will be
delivered to the client ñ the Redlands Police Department. Finally, conclusions and
recommendations for further study are provided.

Entire pdf located here (94 pgs)

Flash for Animated Crime Maps

This is a earlier example (much earlier- 2002) of using animation to tell a story within a mapping environment. This is a gallery of animated maps showing burglary, assaults, all incidents, and vehicle thefts year-by-year. Also included is an example of an hour-by-hour analysis of traffic collisions.

Methodology
This is completed by exporting individual layers into Macromedia (Now Adobe) Flash. Flash is a perfect medium for this because it is able to handle raster and vectors with different levels of compression. In these (old...) examples, the densities(rasters) are vectorized, reducing the size substantially. What would be a 30-100MB avi file exported from ArcScene is an 80kb swf file.
I teach a class about this, and have since (2005) developed a way to incorporate Modelbuilder to create and symbolize the densities automatically.

Geography & Public Safety: Using ModelBuilder for Geographic Information System Tasks

This was published in the National Institute of Justice's Geography and Public Safety Bulletin:


Crime analysis requires a Geographic Information System (GIS)—a software program for capturing, managing, and analyzing geographic and spatial data—to process data and create data products (e.g., printed maps, pamphlets) for a wide audience. Crime data can change daily, which makes producing maps and other products a daunting task for many analysts. Automating regular tasks will save time and allow for more sophisticated tools for analysis. Crime analysts need a mapping program that allows them to regularly update data in a timely fashion. Environmental Systems Research Institute’s (ESRI) ModelBuilder is a component of a type of ArcMap that allows for drag-and-drop development of complex geoprocessing tasks (e.g., placing points on the map based on addresses, summarizing data). It helps crime analysts expedite their daily geoprocessing tasks for map production.

Advancing Earlier Modeling Tools

ESRI’s ModelBuilder is a drag-and-drop process modeling environment that comes standard with ArcMap version 9.x. ModelBuilder is an advancement of ArcView 3.x’s Geoprocessing Wizard Extension. Where the Geoprocessing Wizard was limited to tasks like spatially joining, merging, and clipping data, ESRI introduces all of ArcMap’s functional capabilities (e.g., spatial analysis, geoprocessing) into the Toolbox. A large number of different tools and tasks can be strung together in the literal sense of a systems technology: data go in, a process occurs, and data come out. The potential to string complex tasks together and automate them to run regularly makes ModelBuilder an attractive option for any Crime Analysis Unit.

The rest of the article, and a series of other articles can be found at
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/maps/gpsBulletin-2008v1.pdf.pdf