GIS

New Esri ArcGIS release Transforms Spatial Analytics

Esri has announced the release of Esri ArcGIS 10.5, the next-generation analytics technology for innovative organizations. It arrives at a time when organizations worldwide are challenged to make sense of real-time digital information. The release helps them glean insight from enterprise data, big data, and the Internet of Things and share that insight in intuitive ways.

The new release is powered by Esri ArcGIS Enterprise, a significant evolution of the technology formerly known as ArcGIS for Server. www.esri.com

NTSB wants rail crossing alerts added to navigation apps

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), USA is recommending that technology companies such as Google incorporate grade-crossing GIS data into their navigation applications to provide drivers with alerts when they’re approaching crossings. The NTSB made its recommendation in a recent report on its investigation into a February 2015 Metrolink train crash. In the incident, the commuter train collided with a truck stuck on rail track near a grade crossing in Oxnard, California.

Last year, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) announced that Google had agreed to integrate FRAsupplied GIS data on 250,000 public and private railroad crossings into its mapping and navigation applications, which would provide drivers and passengers with additional alerts when they’re approaching a grade crossing.

NTSB is now recommending that Google, Apple, Garmin, HERE, TomTom, INRIX, MapQuest, Microsoft Corp., Omnitracs, OpenStreetMap US, Sensys Networks, StreetLight Data, Teletrac and UPS of America incorporate grade crossing related GIS data, such as those being prepared by the FRA, into their navigation applications to provide drivers with additional safety cues to reduce the likelihood of crashes at or near public and private grade crossings. http://www.progressiverailroading.com

Karnataka GIS portal

The Karnataka Geographic Information System or K-GIS portal was recently launched by IT Minister Priyank Kharge and the department’s Principal Secretary V Manjula.

The portal, developed by the Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre (KSRSAC), was unveiled at BengaluruITE.biz has been visualised as a single gateway-integrated platform to access, acquire, process, store, distribute, and improve the utilisation of geospatial information through intelligent web services generated and published by various agencies; advanced tools for GIS-based analysis; web and mobile apps; and spatial information for further integration with other enterprise applications. https://yourstory.com