January 6, 2009 (Park Ridge, IL) – URISA and the National Center for Transit Research (NCTR) are pleased to announce a new partnership to present the Fifth National GIS in Transit Conference, taking place in St. Petersburg, Florida, November 10-12, 2009. This biennial conference will focus on the growing role of GIS in supporting planning, service delivery, and decision making in public transit.

The Program Committee will organize an educational program based upon the abstracts submitted through the Call for Participation. All abstract submissions, received by February 27, 2009, will be reviewed and considered for this conference.  The Program Committee encourages abstract submissions  in one or more of these four general categories – Applications, Tools, Data, and Management & Policy. Examples of topics within each category are included below:

APPLICATIONS
Asset Management – Stops, stations, communications, routes/track, work orders, etc; Bus Stop Inventory Collection and Management
Transit Operations – Scheduling; AVL; voice annunciation; ridership stats; routing; performance analysis; data validation, etc.
Security and Safety – Crime analysis, accident/safety analysis, emergency planning, disaster recovery, etc.
Planning -  Service planning; Census data transit planning; transit-oriented development; demand studies (long-range forecasting, transit oriented development, etc.)
Public Information – data presentation/cartography; trip planners; other public website services
Other Applications Topics
TOOLS
Software – Google/Microsoft and transit; open source and web-enabled GIS; mashups, Web 2.0   
Data Collection – Automatic Passenger Counters (APC); GPS, mobile GIS
Other Tools Topics
DATA
Data Modeling – transit modeling applications
Data Standards – transit data standards
Data Sources -  American Community Survey, LED (Longitudinal Employment Dynamics) Data, Census Data, National Household Data Survey
Other Data Topics
MANAGEMENT & POLICY
Enterprise Architecture – implementation issues
GIS and IT management topics
FTA/Census/FGDC programs/priorities – Intelligent Transportation Systems, Title 6, NTD Data
GISP Program
New Starts Program
Other Management & Policy Topics
Preconference workshops, an exhibition and networking events will accompany the educational program. Visit the conference website, for details and submission guidelines.

Contact:

Wendy Nelson

Executive Director – URISA

wnelson@urisa.org

www.urisa.org

847-824-6300

Mark Your Calendar:

GIS/CAMA Technologies Conference – February 8-11, 2009 – Charleston SC

URISA’s GIS in Public Health Conference – June 5-8, 2009 – Providence RI

URISA/NENA Addressing Conference – August 4-6, 2009 – Providence RI

URISA’s 47th Annual Conference – September 29-October 2, 2009 – Anaheim CA

GIS in Transit Conference – November 10-12, 2009 – St Petersburg FL