1. Digitization of safety barriers in austin
Madeleine Corruvbias
Joseph Frombaugh
Billy Rodriguez
Gage Sears
Samuel Delafuente

2. Presentation Outline INTRODUCTION DATA METHODOLOGY RESULTS CONCLUSION
SUMMARY
PURPOSE
SCOPE 
DATA
METHODOLOGY
RESULTS
CONCLUSION 

3. Summary
The City of Austin is one of the most rapidly growing cities in the United States
Total metropolitan population of nearly 2 million people
Traffic and congestion on roads is becoming an increasing problem
While the city currently uses GIS to catalog its assets, there simply isn't enough time or man power to complete all necessary projects that could increase efficiency within the department.
Hill Country Planning has decided to assist the city with one such project – the digitization and cataloging of all of the safety barriers in Council District 8, located in southwest Austin.

4. Purpose
The purpose of this project was to catalog all of the safety barriers in Council District 8 of Austin, Texas through the process of GIS digitization, with a focus on barriers in proximity to stream crossings. 
Once the safety barriers in District 8 of Austin are digitized, the Public Works Department, Texas Transportation Department, and Parks and Recreation Department will be able to keep track and log maintenance records of their assets.

5. Scope
This project saw the digitization of 290 safety barriers and 218 safety end treatments (SETs) at 164 stream crossings in Council District 8 of Austin.
Each person individually digitized any safety barriers present at stream crossings
The project, which began in early February, has taken approximately three months to complete. 
The actual digitization took less than a month, rest of time was spent writing reports

7. Data
The majority of data was provided by the City of Austin, including:
City Council Districts
Stream crossings (point layer file)
Aerial imagery
Previously digitized barriers (project was about 15% completed before)
A guide to safety barrier and end treatment types
To digitize each individual safety barrier, we relied on Google Maps imagery

8. Methodology
Through the use of ArcMap's editing session we used Create Line to digitize safety barriers that lay over stream crossings.
Google Map's street view assisted our group to identify barriers and safety end treatments.
The URL was copied and pasted in the attribute table where it can be easily accessed when the barrier was highlighted in the Identify tool.

9. Methodology
We used our best judgement to choose, for each barrier we digitized, the type of barrier at that location and what material it was made of, selecting from an already created drop down box in the attribute table, or domain.
Other necessary messages were left in the Notes field (i.e "no safety barrier present").

10. Methodology

11. Metal and wood guardrail
Results
53 of 164 stream crossings had metal and wood guardrailings
These safety barriers were generally much longer in length than other types & included distinct SETs (most common was turn-down, followed by highway class)
58 of 164 stream crossings did not have a safety barrier at all (mostly low-traffic neighborhood streets)
Those that did have barriers generally were much shorter and of a simple type (i.e Railing Bridge)
Metal and wood guardrail
Highway Class
safety end treatment

12. Safety barrier materials

14. Locations of metal and wood guardrailings
3 or more barriers
2 barriers
1 barrier
-Mopac Expressway (14)
-Davis Ln (4)
-Latta Dr (4)
-US Highway 71 (3)
-Escarpment Blvd (3)
-South Capital of Texas Highway (3)
-Convict Hill (3)
-Beckett Rd
-La Cresada
-Republic of Texas Blvd
-Mauai Dr
-Buena Suerte Dr
-Highway 290
-Ridge Oak Rd
-Silvermine Dr
-Sanderling Tr
-Welsh Tarlton Ln
-Redbud Tr
-La Naranja
-Rollingwood Dr
-Chatelaine Dr

15. Traffic accident analysis
Although the actual ArcMap digitization was completed quickly, traffic accident analysis was not possible due to time limitations.
However, our literature review showed that the number of accidents actually increased when a safety barrier was present, although the number of fatalities did decrease.
False sense of security?
More accidents at intersections?
Or steep/winding roads?

16. Conclusion Overall, we enjoyed working with City of Austin
What did we learn?
Process of editing
Different tools
Possible future work in other  districts 
Impact and merits

17. Questions?