Assignment 1

Getting to Know ArcGIS Online

By

Renad Wael Albadaineh

202424760

For

CRP 514: Introduction to GIS

Term 242

Instructor: Dr. Baqer Al-Ramadan

Date: 30th January, 2025

Introduction

The public map of traffic incidents in the walking zones of Washington, DC's public
schools is examined in this assignment through methodology section explained by
multiple steps that examine three layers, each one has its own specifications and
characteristics, also the assignment’s objectives are clarified and finally the reflection
section is stated at the end of the assignment.

Assignment objectives

The use of past driving incidents to pinpoint locations where pupils might be at risk
while traveling to and from school, and eventually to better visualize the data, create
a new map and get acquainted with ArcGIS Online's Map Viewer. Moreover, the
skills of signing in and joining online, exploring a public map before layering,
discover the public schools and school walking areas symbology, configure the traffic
accident’s location, how to apply filters and aggregation, finally configure the map
pop-up windows.

Methodology

First of all, the beginning started with discovering the ArcGIS online website and its
friendly interface that contains understandable and readable options on its web page.
Through the journey of exploring the web page, I have learned the basics of how to
start navigating ArcGIS and the way of layering to approach a bunch of information
related to the traffic accidents near a school walking area. Afterward, I have
discovered how to access a specific public map that everyone has access to and in
which is based on points, lines, and polygons -the main components of GIS-
presented by streets, topography, blocks and buildings, as shown in Figure 1, and 2.

This exercise broadened my understanding by introducing me to a variety of new

terms; Basemap, attributes, clustering, pop-up windows, and symbology. Those
phrases enhanced the usability of the data layers and their properties as well as the
level of details is determined by scrolling zoom in and zoom out option.

All the steps of visualizing and creating layers that contain data related to the safety
of students were done through relying on previous driving incident’s locations where
pupils might be at risk while traveling to and from school, and eventually creating a
new map with specified characteristics, as shown in the Figures 1-12 below.
 Figure 1.: Four steps present the process of accessing the online platform of ArcGIS that is
related to my organization, choose a specific public school safety map.

Figure 2.: Streets Basemap of Washington. DC.

The first step in the process was to explore the layers pane, which offers access to
three important categories of data across different layers: public school locations,
school walking zones, and safety information about speed limits and accident rates at
different places. This step is also essential for comprehending that, as illustrated in
Figure 3, the layers at the top of the list are shown in the foreground and the layers
mentioned below are shown behind them on the screen. Symbology is important,
even if Figure 4 shows that a number of features affect how the main screen looks.
For example, changing the school symbol from plain points to a purple-filled icon
greatly improves the map's readability and speeds up the process of understanding its
contents.

Figure 3.: Public School layer shown at the foreground of the platform and the current
symbology.

Figure 4.: The new symbol of the Public-School layer.

After pinpointing the locations of the schools and selecting the appropriate
visualization for them, the next step was to display the surrounding school walking
areas by making the corresponding layer visible. This enabled me to visually connect
the schools' locations with the designated walking zones around them.

Figure 5.: The School Walking Areas Layer.

Figure 6.: illustrates the School Walking Areas, highlighted by the "ToBreak" field, which
indicates the time required to reach each school.

While the integration and layering of information are essential in engineering

domains, ArcGIS improves the capacity to display and hide different types of data.
As seen in Figures 6 and 7, the freedom to select how data is displayed and rendered
on the screen provides the best stylistic possibilities, like changing the transparency,
resizing symbols, or changing colors, guaranteeing a clean and understandable
display.

Figure 7.: The color ramp of the school walking areas.

Figure 8.: Vision Zero Safety Layer, and the application of two filters separately; Speeding,
and Failure to stop for pedestrian.

The locations of officially reported serious traffic incidents close to school walking
areas are displayed on the map when the Vision Zero Safety layer is activated.
According to Figures 8 and 9, combining school locations, walking zones, and
accident hotspots into a single layered map improves the capacity to prevent accidents
in the future by facilitating better design and decision-making through studies of
speed limits, traffic volume and patterns, and the application of safety measures.
These numbers also demonstrate the use of four filters: speeding, running red lights,
failing to stop for pedestrians, and running stop signs. When a filter is applied to these
expressions, many points are created that could impair the viewer's eyesight and
situational awareness, but the clustering feature, which will be examined in in the
following step.

Figure 9.: New symbol to represent traffic accident’s location by adjusting point style.

Next, I explored clustering, a potent characteristic that creates a single symbol by

combining point data within a given distance. This successfully lessens visual clutter,
which facilitates interpretation of the map, will assist in highlighting areas where
multiple incidents occur more frequently, and raises the standard and precision of
decision-making.

As there are four basic shapes to use for symbolization, their size symbolized by
either (radius, or length, or width, or height) presents the number of accidents happen
in this specific location, as in this assignment larger circles represent more
occurrences of incidents.

Spatial data and attribute data makes GIS a powerful tool, as by providing crucial
descriptive information about geographic features in an understandable, tabular style,
the pop-up windows helped me hone my map customizing abilities. Furthermore, the
pop-up windows were made easier to operate and more streamlined for improved
readability by allowing users to rename particular fields and eliminate those that were
unnecessary, as shown in Figures 10, and 11. Moreover, this website provides a
feature in which you can save the map online and the ability to access it by yourself
only at any time.

Figure 10.: A docked pop-up windows that presents nonspatial information about geographic
feature in a GIS.

Figure 11.: Modified name of the title and fields related to a specific accident, and final steps
of saving my own map.
 Figure 12.: The final saved map.
Reflection Section

In order to find connections, patterns, and trends, GIS gathers, saves, and arranges
data so that you may see, query, analyze, and interpret it as an Architect involved
in using GIS in many fields. In this exercise I have performed many duties that
equipped me with many skills, viewing and analyzing maps on online platform,
perform spatial analysis to gather information about traffic accident’s locations
and schools presented by shapes as a geographic feature and the relationship that
allows the comparisons of different types of data shown on the three integrated
layers. Moreover, I have obtained a thorough understanding of a place by
superimposing several data sets. This aids in illustrating the interactions between
various components in a map, resulting in more intelligent design choices.

I seek attention to important details or distinguish between different kinds of data

by modifying symbols and colors. This facilitates the interpretation of complex
data and enables me to swiftly determine the information that is most pertinent to
my decision. When working with vast facts, such the locations of existing
geographic features, clustering helps in avoiding visual clutter by combining close
data points into a single symbol. By streamlining the map for easier examination,
I can concentrate on regions that need improvement without becoming bogged
down by too many details.
Activating and deactivating layers offer flexibility enabling to switch between
levels according to the present requirements. This flexibility guarantees the
improvements of the analysis and get more accurate conclusions using current,
pertinent data.
Additionally, this kind of exercise improves my decision-making process when it
comes to school location planning, as does the knowledge I acquire from studying
the data that is produced. It enables me to choose the most optimal locations that
put student safety first, making sure they are far from busy roads. I can
successfully alert cars to the existence of a school and students by establishing a
buffer zone between the school, streets, and pedestrian areas. This will encourage
drivers to slow down for safety.

When these abilities are combined, GIS features greatly improve my capacity to
use the platform more effectively and efficiently while also enabling me to more
perceptively comprehend and analyze geographic data. Better planning and design
results follow from this.