Collaborative Web-GIS Design: A Case Study for Road Risk Analysis and Monitoring

This article presents a methodology for designing a WebGIS framework intended for automatically analyzing spatial data and updating statistics of interest with new information inserted daily by multiple users via a Web portal. A practical example is used on vehicle accident data for assessing risk in specific road segments. Two main blocks integrated together will be described: the collaborative block and the data-analysis block. The former gives end-users computer-aided tools to view, insert, modify and manage data related to accidents and traffic monitoring sensors, whereas the latter is developed to automatically analyze the accident data coming from user's collaboration. Because different agencies can survey accident sites, a collaborative environment is necessary – and a Web-based solution is ideal – for permitting multi-user access and data insertion. A centralized approach to process the data in real time is described in all its components. Server-side Structured Query Language functions optimize performance by using dedicated libraries for spatial processing and re-structuring the attributes associated with elements which are consequently re-classified for correct color-scaling. The end-product is a system that provides a seamless integration of front-end tools for user collaboration and back-end tools to update accident risk statistics in real time and provide them to stakeholders.