{"id":4803,"date":"2021-08-30T18:33:19","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T16:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revistaitransporte.com\/?p=4803"},"modified":"2021-09-07T14:57:46","modified_gmt":"2021-09-07T12:57:46","slug":"in-depth-mapping-for-the-mediterranean-corridor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revistaitransporte.com\/in-depth-mapping-for-the-mediterranean-corridor\/","title":{"rendered":"In-depth mapping for the Mediterranean Corridor"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 24 March 2021, Adif unveiled the new Geographic Information System (GIS) of the Mediterranean Corridor to celebrate the European Year of Railway. The need to develop a GIS arose in response to requests received by the Commissioner\u2019s Office from institutional, economic and social actors: an official, accessible and user friendly, but at the same time technically and graphically detailed means of consultation.<\/p>\n

There are interesting and pioneering examples of GIS applications to trans-European corridors, such as the European Commission\u2019s TENtec interactive map of the 9 trans-European corridors or the CIS (Corridor Information System) of the Rhine-Alpine Corridor. However, neither case manages to combine the precision and quantity of information, the speed of consultation and the ease of use that today\u2019s information society demands. For this reason, Adif has emphasised that the Mediterranean Corridor GIS should set four fundamental objectives: providing up-to-date information on its development; displaying its complexity, identifying all the connection nodes; showing its cross-border and European scope; and visualising the work of the Office and the monitoring of the works. The materialisation of these objectives in the form of this interactive portal has attracted attention in the EU, where the tool has been received with interest. Its excellent reception, which exceeded 10,000 visits in the first month, has prompted Adif to plan the development of a GIS for the Atlantic Corridor as well.<\/p>\n

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Future scheme of Mediterranean Corridor (Map Viewer).<\/p><\/div>\n

In order to achieve the aforementioned objectives, a specific working methodology has been developed and articulated in several phases under the direction of the Office of the Mediterranean Corridor. Firstly, it has been necessary to design ad hoc<\/i> databases to catalogue and process the information related to the Mediterranean Corridor: the technical, socio-economic and geographical aspects of the railway infrastructure, urban nodes, ports and terminals, among others, have been structured and codified in an integrated and coherent manner. This has been very important in order to achieve a geospatial architecture that is both flexible, i.e. allowing periodic reviews, and at the same time rigid, in the sense that no structural modifications are needed and that it is well adapted to other European corridors or other transport networks.<\/p>\n

Secondly, all the necessary data and cartographic bases have been collected. This step has relied upon the collaboration of many institutions and companies. Adif\u2019s role in providing geospatial information and very specific data on the railway infrastructure and freight operations, and Ineco\u2019s role in numerous works, studies and projects of the Mediterranean Corridor, both stand out. SNCF R\u00e9seau and the Occitania Region were involved in the profiling of the cross-border sector and the French sections. Much data has also been collected from the websites of port authorities, intermodal terminals and private companies websites.<\/p>\n

The viewer has a base map to consult all the planned sections under construction and in service and a statistical map with dynamic graphs that summarise the most relevant technical and socio-economic aspects<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thirdly, mapping has been carried out to provide the databases with spatial information. The real challenge has been to harmonise the sectioning of the railway network and the nodes in order to make the sections implemented in the Geographic Information Systems of Adif (IdeADIF) and the European Commission (TENtec) compatible and at the same time coherent with the planning of the works and ongoing studies.<\/p>\n

As a result, the network is made up of almost 700 sections between the Network of General Interest and the accesses to terminals and ports, represented in four situations: sections currently in service; in execution; in the study and construction project phase; and, finally, future sections, i.e., when all the actions in progress have been completed.<\/p>\n

Nodes, on the other hand, total more than 270 elements. Overall, more than 1,000 elements have been processed, each with its associated geometries and information, with a total of 45,000 attributes. The amount of information to be processed is considerable and continuous revisions (last phase) have been necessary in order to achieve a very high level of accuracy and detail.<\/p>\n