Analysis of Least Cost Path by Using Geographic Information Systems Network and Multi Criteria Techniques

Abstract

The transportation problem has direct impact in human life towards the progress. With the rapid vehicle volume growth on roads, people spend much time to arrive to their work, school and health centers. As a result, transportation-related problems are getting worse. In Khartoum city the increase in traffic volume results in growing costs in terms of rapidly increasing congestion levels with associated environmental pollution and with a risk of accidents and time wasted during travel. The use of modern technological tools like Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for determining suitable location of optimum routes involves managing a variety of data sets from different sources and at different scales. The aim of this research is to illustrate how GIS, network and multi criteria Analysis (MCA) can be utilized in road planning. Network used to determine travel time. This study outline a detailed process by which MCA can be applied to establish parameters for analysis by GIS. The research shows the steps followed in ArcGIS to determine the most viable route for Khartoum a given parameters: educational, financial, hospitals, business and governmental institutions as well as places of entertainment were identified as being extremely important destination points of service for the path and thus established as parameters. Numerous destination points of service were highlighted and categorized under one of the main groups. Each main group given a value and weighted against other groups to establish an order of priority. A path between two points was obtained. The start and destination point were selected randomly without any pre-knowledge of the area. The thesis has succeeded in showing that it is possible to determine path between two points using Geographic information systems, Network and Multi-criteria analysis in Khartoum city. This study provide a useful tool to decision maker and planner in planning least cost path