Getting Around in Vienna (with the Kind Assistance of Geospatial Open Source Software)
Hi sprinters, ITS Vienna Region is a silver sponsor of the OSGeo Code Sprint 2014. In many ways, geospatial open source software has helped us providing our services, so the Code Sprint is a great occasion to give a little bit back to you.
Who we are and what we are doing
ITS Vienna Region is a division of Verkehrsverbund Ost-Region (VOR). VOR coordinates the public transport in and around Vienna.
ITS Vienna Region provides intermodal traffic information for the northeastern part of Austria on its web site anachb.at. There’s an AnachB app for Androids and iPhones, too.
We operate and contribute to the so called Graph Integration Platform (GIP), a comprehensive intermodal graph of the Austrian transport networks including roads, rails, subways, tramways, ferries, hiking trails and biking tracks and everything else.
What we can do for you
You can use our services to find the best way to get around in Vienna and its surroundings walking, using public transport, bikes or cars. Our goal is to provide up-to-date information about all traffic modes and thereby encourage people to use the more environmentally friendly ones.
What you do for us
For our services and in our background processes, we use lots of free and open source GIS software (and lots of commercial software as well, I have to admit).
The levels of service calculated by our traffic state simulations, for instance, are provided to the City of Vienna interactive map (operated by MA14, your venue sponsor) and to the public as a WMS layer using MapServer.
Our upgraded, new user interface will be based on OpenLayers. A public beta with a slightly different design is operated by Verkehrsauskunft Österreich (VAO), the upcoming integrated platform for intermodal traffic information in Austria.
In the backend, we use PostGIS for hosting a copy of our network graph and referencing traffic messages and detector locations onto the links. Accurately locating data on the network is essential for providing up-to-date information about traffic volumes, congestions, accidents and other disturbances on the roads.
One of our most popular services is the bike routing interface. It uses data about slope angles for calculating the routes and provides height profiles for the results. The underlying data have been generated by referencing DEM data onto the network graph using the Python bindings of GDAL/OGR.
There’s a lot more to tell, probably too much for a blog post :-) . So, finally:
Thanks to you and all those who contribute to free and open source geospatial software and a happy code sprint to everybody!
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