In a crowded city like Grater Cairo Region (GCR), Egypt, finding a desired location becomes a difficult task, especially in emergency situations. The main criteria of any emergency response system (ERS) are its readiness to solve the immediate emergency situation such as fire emergency response, police station emergency response, healthcare emergency response system, etc. The main purpose of this paper is to provide an enhanced network analysis that uses the capabilities of Geographic Information System (GIS) to identify the best route from the location of an incident for any healthcare service providers in the Greater Cairo metropolitan area. The results obtained in this paper showed that the best route travel time is much better than the shortest route travel time by 22%. In emergency situations, it is essential to reach the location of an incident as fast as possible to rescue people life. So, based on the obtained results, this paper recommended that the GIS best route algorithm is better than the shortest route algorithm in emergency situations especially in a crowded city like GCR.
Geographic Information System (GIS) technology is one of the hottest research tools in the world recently and one of the fastest growing high technology of monitoring.
Copyright © by the paper’s authors. Copying permitted for private and academic purposes. It has been proven to be valid and efficient to solve real-life problems, such as responding and resolving emergency situations [1]. A geographic information system is a computerized system that is designed to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, manage, visualize, and present all types of geographical data associated with geographical locations [2]. GIS can bring all that data together quickly and enable users to analyze and visualize information in an efficient way. It has been used in several fields such as transportation management, emergency services, gas station mapping, and healthcare planning [2]. The shortest path between two vertices “s” and “t” in a network is defined as the directed simple path from “s” to “t” with the property that no other such path has a lower weight [8]. Most applications solve the shortest path problem based on the distance as a weight. In this paper, we used the time parameter instead of the distance which calculated the path between two points that takes minimum time based on one or more parameters other than the distance. Examples of these parameters are road width, average speed, waiting time, etc. In emergency situations, the best path is preferred, that it takes the minimum time to reach a destination which helps to save people life. The main objective of this research is to find the best path and representing this valuable spatial information to end-users in an efficient way using GIS software. Most of shortest path algorithms (Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm, Euler’s algorithm, etc.) are finding the shortest path that has only the least distance between a source node and a destination node. Applying one of these algorithms on GIS software that resolve emergency situations is not suitable for real road network because it considers only the length of the path to find the shortest one and does not consider other real-time traffic information (i.e. Road width, speed limit, surface condition, turn restrictions, etc.) which should be defined to identify more realistic routes.
The road network of the Greater Cairo region was taken as a case study to apply the proposed enhanced method. 2
In [2], the authors tried to solve the problem of finding a specialized hospital and its shortest path to reach in Aurangabad city, Maharashtra State, India. They used the ArcGIS software and Dijkstra’s algorithm that provide the shortest path from one location to another for finding the nearest location of the hospitals from user’s location. The calculations of the shortest path were based on road distances; traffic congestion and state of the roads were not considered.
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In [4], the authors discussed the shortest path analysis based on Dijkstra’s algorithm and implemented an emergency response system based on GIS. They also integrated GIS, web services, and Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) technologies and provided a web-based application for finding the best routes from specialized response team stations locations and incident locations. Their proposed system provided the optimal route depending on the distance of route without considering road conditions and traffic congestion.
In [5], the authors developed a desktop-based emergency response system for emergency readiness and management through GIS in Delhi, India. The main objective of this application was to provide immediate response to any incident or accident. A detailed transportation network was maintained and integrated with real-time traffic data provided by NAVTEQ in India. The near real-time traffic information was used to analyze suitable routes to the incident location by avoiding highly congested routes and therefore reducing the response time. Using GIS capabilities, various analyses were performed such as finding the shortest route using Origin–Destination (OD) cost matrix, network analysis, proximity analysis, and buffer analysis.
In [6], the authors established a GIS based fire emergency response service in Kumasi Metropolis, Ghana where the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) can identify the optimal route from its location of any fire incident. The optimal route was modeled based on the travel distance, travel time, the slope of the roads and the delays in travel times. In [7], the authors provided a study that depicted the preliminary results for a decision support tool to model network congestion routing and provide an alternative route during rush hours in emergency cases. The system predicts traffic flow and barriers during rush hours and suggests the alternative route to reach hospitals at the time of emergency. The authors used ArcGIS 9.3 network analyst tool and Dijkstra’s algorithm for performing shortest path analysis. The main objective of this study was to find the best route from the nearest hospital ambulance to the incident location and from the incident location to the nearest hospital with alternate routes.
In [8], the authors proposed an optimized version of the shortest path based on the Dijkstra’s Algorithm. In the optimized version, the starting node is changed with the searching process, and uses the stack structure to maintain it, in order not to revisit the nodes. This improved the searching efficiency to the shortest path practically. But this system was also considering only the length of the path and did not consider other real-time traffic information. 3
In this research, the flowchart of the proposed enhanced roads network analysis methodology using GIS software is shown in Figure 1. Six stages of the process have been applied, beginning with collecting and preparing the data that will be used in the analysis (the study area base map, road network data, healthcare service provider data, and historical traffic data), then Geo-referencing the base map of the study area. Following this is the creation of a Geo-database that will store the prepared data. Then building both the network topology and the network dataset. Finally, the network analysis process has been applied to the road network of the Greater Cairo Region (GCR). 3.1
This phase includes downloading the study area base map, preparing the road network data, downloading the healthcare service provider’s data, and preparing the historical traffic data.
The study area is the Greater Cairo metropolitan area. It is extended from 30° 11′ 10″ N and 31° 27′ 50″ E. Greater Cairo is the largest metropolitan area in Egypt, and the largest urban area in Africa and the world's 16th largest metropolitan area. It consists of Cairo Governorate, parts of Giza Governorate, and parts of Qaliobia Governorate, with a total population estimated at 20,500,000; and its area is about 1,709 km2; as well as its density is 10,400/km2 [9]. Cairo is the capital of Egypt and it is a vibrant city. It is associated with Ancient Egypt, as the famous Giza pyramid complex and the ancient city of Memphis are located in its geographical area. It is located near the Nile Delta [10].
The base map of Greater Cairo was downloaded from OpenStreetMap (OSM). OSM can be accessed as an ArcGIS Online Service that provides free read-only access to OpenStreetMap as a base map for GIS work in ESRI products such as ArcGIS Desktop It is shown in Figure 2 The Greater Cairo road network data were downloaded using the ArcGIS Online Service as shown in Figure 3. The data contain an attribute (Meters) to store the length of each road segment in the roads network, an attribute (Direction) to store the direction of each segment, and two fields (TF_Minutes and FT_Minutes) to store the time required to travel over each road segment in minutes in both directions, and an attribute (Name) to store the name of each road segment. The healthcare service providers’ data were downloaded from the OpenStreetMap. The data contain an attribute (Name) to store the name of each healthcare service provider, and another attribute (Type) to store the type of this healthcare service provider. The last step in the data preparation phase is the preparation of the road network traffic data. Traffic data are given information about how travel speeds on specific road segments change over time. In network analysis, traffic is important because it affects travel times, which in turn affect results. If we don’t account for traffic routing from one location to another, the expected travel and arrival times could be far from accurate. Another reason to account for traffic is that it gives the routing opportunities that avoiding the slower, more congested roads, which saves time. Traffic data can be stored using two different models: historical and live traffic. In this paper, traffic data were stored as historical traffic data.
The historical traffic data were modeled based on the idea that travel speeds follow a weeklong pattern. Thus, the travel speeds of a given road segment at a certain time of a day of a week are expected to be similar to those of the same road segment at the same time of the same day in another week. The expected speeds are usually determined by averaging multiple observations over some time span, such as a year. Also, the historical traffic data were created according to the ArcGIS Network Analyst specifications.
In this phase, a Geo-referencing process for the downloaded roads network data is being performed. The Geo-referencing process allows the registration of the digitized top sheet on the earth’s surface [2]. It is considered a very critical stage as it affects the accuracy of the road network data.
The Geo-database is the native data structure used in ArcGIS and is the fundamental data format used for both editing and management of the data. A Geodatabase can be personal, file, or enterprise. In this proposed method, a personal Geo-database has been created using ARCGIS. A personal Geo-database is a database that can store, query, and manage both spatial and non-spatial data. It will contain the data of healthcare service providers, road network, and traffic tables. The road network data and the healthcare service providers’ data were discussed earlier in the methodology. DailyProfiles and Streets_DailyProfiles tables were used to store traffic information. The “DailyProfiles” table is used to store the speed profiles for each day of the week (Table1). The times of the day are split into time intervals, or time slices (one hour) of equal duration.
The Streets_DailyProfiles join table identifies road features, their free-flow travel speeds, and their related traffic profiles for each day of the week (Table2).
each record in the table.
Identifies the feature class that the street feature is stored in. Identifies the road feature.
Work together to identify the direction of travel (0 since the beginning of the road, 1 for the opposite end) Represents the freeflow speed
traffic for Sunday
traffic for Tuesday
traffic for a Wednesday
Represents the traffic for Friday
To get good analysis and results, it is necessary to build a topology of the road network to discover whatever errors in the data and correcting them. This was performed by applying some topology rules such as ensuring that there are no dangles in the road network and the roads do not intersect or overlap with themselves. 3.5
After correcting the road network errors, it is ready for being used in building the network dataset that will be used in the network analysis. To create a network dataset that renders traffic data, we need a Geo-database that contains a line feature class, and the two traffic data table created earlier. The line feature class will represent the road network and must be stored in a feature dataset. The traffic tables will represent the traffic data and its relationship with the road network. The network dataset is well suited to model the transportation network. It consists of a set of edges that represent the links over which agents will travel, and a set of junctions that connect edges and facilitate navigation from one edge to another. The Network analyst extension was used in ArcGIS for Desktop to create the network dataset shown in Figure 4. powerful extension of ArcGIS that provides networkbased spatial analysis, including route analysis, travel directions, closest facility analysis, and service area analysis [2]. It enables users to dynamically model realistic roads network factors, such as turn restrictions, speed limits, and traffic conditions at different times of the day. The ArcGIS Network Analyst Extension uses the standard Dijkstra’s algorithm to calculate the least accumulated cost between the destination node and every other node in the network. Two types of network analyses were applied; the best route analysis, and the closet facilities analysis. 3.6.1
The best route analysis generates the best route
between two locations based on travel time which
depends on the traffic conditions available on the
network at a particular time of a day. The network
analyst extension makes it is easy to set the best rote
analysis parameters, such as the travel time that will
be used as an impedance factor, the start time of
traveling which produce different results based on the
day profile selected, the restrictions on the analysis,
such as the road directions (unidirectional or
bidirectional), and the ability to ignore invalid
network locations that may cause the analysis to fail.
After adjusting the best route analysis settings, we
chose the start location and the end location, and then
using the best route solver tool to generate the best
route between these two locations. Figure 5 shows
the best route between a start location (Location 1)
and end location (Location 2).
The road network analysis has been implemented
using ArcGIS Network Analyst Extension. It is a
The directions window of the previous analysis is
shown in Figure 6.
The closet facilities analysis finds the closest
facilities that can be reached in a specific period from
an incident location based on travel time and traffic
information available. This helps in emergency
situations to know the closest facilities that can be
reached from the incident location, which in turns
reduces time, effort, resources and saving people life
[
In this paper, we provide analysis and comparison of the results of the network analysis using two different methods. To navigate from one location to another, either the route with the least length (shortest route) will be selected, or the route with the least travel time (best route) will be selected depending on the impedance factor you choose to solve for. Figure 9 shows the shortest route between a source location (The Autostrad Road, El-Maadi, Cairo, Egypt) and a destination location (The Ring Road, New El-Marg, Cairo, Egypt). In this analysis, the road length has been chosen as the impedance factor, the start time of travelling to be 3:00 PM which is the evening rush hour traffic on the road network in the Greater Cairo area.
The distance of the route obtained from the shortest route analysis represents the accumulated lengths of the road segments over which agents will travel. In a similar manner, the total time of the route obtained from the shortest route analysis represents the accumulated time in minutes for each route segment over which agents will travel. The shortest route results can be represented graphically as shown in Figure 10. To give an evidence for the superiority of the best route on the shortest route, we have performed the previous analysis at different periods for each day in the week on a time slice of 120 minutes starting at 8:00 AM and ending at 12:00 AM for both the shortest route and the best route. We excluded the calculations as it will not give us any differences between the shortest route and the best route because in these periods there are no traffic jam on the road network. The average travel time in minutes for each analysis was calculated and recorded as shown in indication for the preference of the best route over the shortest route. The superiority percentage for the best route travel time was calculated according to the following formula: = [((
) − )/ ] ∗ =
SP = Superiority Percentage SRT = Shortest Route Time
BRT = Best Route Time Substituting the values of SRT and BRT from Table
SP = 22 % Which means that the best route travel time is much better than the shortest route travel time by 22%. In emergency cases, it is essential to reach the location of an incident as fast as possible to rescue people life.
So, according to the superiority percentage, the best route is more suitable for being used in emergency situations than the shortest route. (%) networks. The Dijkstra best routing algorithm built into the ARCGIS software is the best method for the network analysis, especially in the crowded city such as Cairo city. This algorithm can preserve the travel time
with 20% to 22%, depending on the travel distances. In the future work, we suggest to use live traffic data when it is available instead of historical traffic data and consider other factors such as road width, road state, road type, and time delay on the road to get realistic results. Also, we plan to enhance the Dijkstra routing algorithm used by the ArcGIS analysis extension to improve its network performance.
RanyaFadlallaAbdalla ,Nagla Ali Gism ,Aisha Elhadi
Engineering and Computer Science (JECS), Vol. 17, No. 1, 2016, pp. 50-57. [2] AmrapaliDabhade, Dr. K. V. Kale, Yogesh Gedam, “Network Analysis for Finding Shortest Path in Hospital Information System”, IJARCSSE, Vol.5, No.7, July 2015, pp. 618-623. [5] Anshul Bhagat, Nikhil Sharma, “GIS-Based Application for Emergency Preparedness and Management Accelerating Response System through GIS”, 14th Esri India User Conference 2013, December 2013, pp. 1-7. [10]WorldAtlas. " Cairo Photos, PhotosEgypt", http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/afric a/cairoegyptphotos.htm.
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