A GIS-based infrastructure management system for municipalities

The infrastructure departments of the Portuguese municipalities must make great efforts in beginning or continuing to use advanced information technology tools to increase institutional productivity and effectiveness in managing infrastructure. At present, they use or are beginning to use independent management systems for each type of infrastructure, such as road pavements, bridges, signs, water pipelines, sewer pipelines, or parks. In the future, they need to begin development of an integrated infrastructure management system (IMS). This paper focuses on the issues and needs that emerged from studies in Portugal involving the implementation of transportation management systems in local municipalities. The functions of various participating divisions inside a municipal department are introduced and discussed. The issues and needs that must be fully understood and considered in the development of an integrated IMS are identified. Doing so involves determining and standardising an effective base linear referencing system, standardising data terminology, determining the shared data needs of the several divisions inside a department, and developing a comprehensive database design with special attention given to the types of data analysis functions performed by each division. The paper also describes the application of the integrated IMS in road maintenance management, road safety management and sewer network management using the same base linear referencing system.