SUBSIDISED SCHOOL TRANSPORT FOR THE SHORTEST WAY TO SCHOOL Oliver May – GIS developer DFC Software engineering @olivermay_be
Oct 21, 2014
SUBSIDISED SCHOOL TRANSPORT FOR THE SHORTEST WAY TO SCHOOL
Oliver May – GIS developerDFC Software engineering
@olivermay_be
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DFC Software Engineering
Belgium-based ICT company
http://www.dfc.be/
Located in Ghent, twin city of Nottingham
City ofGhent
Belgium-based
images: (c) Oliver May, BBC, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Council-House-Nottingham.jpg
City ofNottingham
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About me
Java Developer at DFC since 2008 OSS enthusiast
Geomajas Active contributor to the project Member of the Project Steering Committee
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The project
SUBSIDISED SCHOOL TRANSPORT FOR THE SHORTEST WAY TO SCHOOL
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The project
Facts
Students in special education get free school transport if they go to the closest school
Problem?
Processing applications is very time consuming Results may be inconclusive Why?
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Time consuming – Why?
Paper applications via snail mail
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Time consuming – Why?
“Calculating” closest school on printed map
Later using Google maps, Mappy, ...
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Inconclusive – Why?
“Calculation” of closest school is done by a person
Prone to error
By wrong measurement By using different maps and online services
time vs. distance
Causes applicants to question the decision
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The requirements
Digitalize the request form and work-flow Online web application
Automate the process as much as possible Fixed and known road data Shortest distance algorithm
Allow abnormalities in the process Ex: siblings, school full, boarding school,...
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The process
School submitsonline application
Closest?
Accept application
Notify via email &send certificate
Yes
Abnormalities?
No
Reject application
Notify via email
System calculate school distances
Officer checks parameters manuallyYes
No
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The process
School submitsonline application
Closest?
Accept application
Notify via email &send certificate
Yes
Abnormalities?
No
Reject application
Notify via email
System calculate school distances
Officer checks parameters manuallyYes
No
Less than 5% of applications
need to be checkedmanually
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Architecture
Web frontend Javascript
Back-end server
DatabaseRoutingengine
geocoding
application logic
Pdf generation
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Architecture - technologies
Web frontend Javascript
Back-end server
DatabaseRoutingengine
geocoding
application logic
Pdf generation
iTextSOAP WSGovernment
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Technology choices
Geomajas Known technology (Java) Able to model and display domain logic Web based Hibernate integrated Built in GIS services (Geotools)
pgRouting Need for out of the box routing on spatial database Didn't want to re-invent the wheel
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GIS data layers
SchoolsSchoolsSchools
SchoolsSchoolsStudent requests
SchoolsSchoolsRoads
700 schools
~350K road segments
~50K requests / year
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The process
How did we design and implement the different steps in the process?
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The process: Application form
School application form
Name, grade, study program Application details (weekly, daily,
type of transport, etc. ) Address (geocoded trough web
service) Municipality Street Number
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The process: Manually geocoding
Problem: geocoding database might not contain address!
Allow entering of free text for manual processing
Manually process by pointing the location on a map by an officer
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The process: Calculating the routes
For every school, the distance to the applicant's address is calculated using pgRouting
The closest school wins
Optimisations:
Don't bother about schools that are further as the crow flies than the closest school so far
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The process: Calculating the routes (2)
Addresses need to be mapped to nodes 1. Find closest street 2. Calculate route from start and from end node
Consequence: we need to calculate up to 4 routes
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The process: Calculating the routes (3)
The actual pgRouting query:
Arguments
'SELECT...' → the topology to route on source, target → nodes to calculate between directional calculation, reverse cost
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The process: Manual processing
List of applications to manually process
Processes individual applications, based on abnormalities
Optionally provide feedback for the school
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The process: Accepting applications
Fill out pdf document
Sign digitally with certificate
iText
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The process: Rejecting applications
Same procedure
Attach a list of closer schools
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The requirements
Digitalize the request form and work-flow Online web application
Automate the process as much as possible Fixed and known road data Shortest distance algorithm
Allow abnormalities in the process Ex: siblings, school full, boarding school,...
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Results
The processing time of applications was reduced from weeks to minutes
Less discussion about rejections, because the data and algorithms are proven to be correct
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And further
Real system was used for “simulations”
Interactive simulation tool was foreseen http://www.rechtopleerlingenvervoer.be/dichtstescholen/
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Questions? Contact me:
[email protected] @olivermay_be At the geosparc booth (Atrium)
Thank you for your time!