Design and Implementation of a Web-GIS for the management of road infrastructure in Zimbabwe

Road asset mapping has the potential of reducing: costs in keeping all assets data, time-consuming activities like retrieving asset attribute from large files, risks associated with losing all the data by using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Traditional road data has been stored in the form of hard copy maps showing the different road infrastructure. The World Wide Web (WWW), has revolutionized the provision, dissemination, and data access to people in different geographical locations. Web-GIS based applications have gained popularity because their low cost, ease of use and availability to a large population - that is anyone with a web-browser. Through browsers, web-GIS based applications can display a map with useful information. The design and development of an interactive web-GIS based digital road infrastructure management tool not only allows users to visualize the road infrastructure content but also help in decision making. It makes use of open source GIS tools, PostgreSQL and PostGIS (to manage spatial and non-spatial data), Geoserver (to connect the database to the client mapping application) and Apache Tomcat (to build and deploy the application). The maps are published through Geoserver with their associated information using JavaScript libraries (Open Layers and Geoext). Further spatial analysis (attribute queries) can be done online. Results show that a web-GIS was developed that manages road asset infrastructure like road signs, bridges, animal grids, rest areas. A user can query precise assets they want to visualize for instance damaged bridges. HoweGIS:here is still need to further improve the application for instance allowing user to put complaints about damaged road assets. Thus, the development of the application will help decision makers as well as other users to utilize the information for the benefit of the country.