TEA freight-tracking application: IRRIS wins cartographic excellence award.

A project that uses the Web to track freight shipments and the factors that influence them, by MTMC's Transportation Engineering Agency, has won a cartographic honor.

Intelligent Road-Rail Information Server, or IRRIS, as it is commonly known, was named a winner in the Cartographic Excellence awards at the GeoSpatial World 2002 conference in Atlanta. The conference is sponsored by the Intergraph Mapping and Geographic Information Systems Solutions the Intergraph GeoSpatial Users Community.

"We are absolutely delighted," said Marc Barthello, one of two coordinators who have spearheaded the server's values to diverse audiences. The first-place award also named coworker Jon Pollack, from GeoDecisions, of Camp Hill, Pa.

MTMC's scored a first place in the category "Dynamic Interactive Presentations." The awards were presented June 12, said an organization press release, to recognize "professional excellence in design, technique, aesthetics, innovation, communication, and presentation." Customers of Intergraph mapping and Geographic Information Systems software participated in the selections.

The Intelligent Road-Rail Information Server is one of the Newport News, Va., agency's most important projects in 2002. The $1.7 million project was developed jointly over 18 months by agency engineers and GeoDecisions. The server uses technologies of the Geographic Information System to make it successful--all data elements in the server have an assigned latitude and longitude coordinate. This allows the server to very accurately place transportation information in its proper place on "smart maps" where everything is located according to assigned coordinates.

IRRIS gathers and integrates all types of information from the farthest reaches of the transportation world--about highways, railroads, marine parts, weather, and defense movements--and combines this information into a visual, easy-to-understand form.

The Intelligent Road-Rail Information Server also provides integrated, up-to-date information on deployment route readiness in the continental United States, and even displays real-time route camera images, where available.

IRRIS was developed to provide instant information for military deployments. As engineers have developed the server, its functionality has expanded to allow real-time monitoring of selected defense shipments.

"IRRIS can track an almost limitless number of shipments," said Bill Cooper, Director, Transportation Engineering Agency."

Currently, the MTMC Operations Center is tracking as many as 500 freight shipments daily on a real-time basis. The stream of instant and accurate data will give MTMC operators a new level of carrier performance.

"We're able to evaluate carrier stops, speed and route selection," said Cooper. "We can produce automatic reports in a few seconds. No longer will it take numerous phone calls."

A host of databases, said Cooper, will provide a stream of information to deploying units in such categories as road names, bridges, railroads, military installations, sea ports and satellite imagery.

IRRIS also includes video routes in the server from military installations to strategic seaports. These video logs, provided by the Federal Highway Administration, are marked in video images every 108 feet. The logs capture highway surroundings and points of interest--providing excellent training for drivers.

"This is a very popular feature among drivers" said Cooper. "They may literally drive the route of a deployment ahead of time."