Author(s): Nwaka Okwuchukwu C., Chukwu Chinyere P., & Ezugwu Chukwuma V.
Road network is considered to be one of the keys to the effective development of any region. Economic growth and development require the support of an effective and efficient transport system enabled by the road network. Given the significance of spatial data in planning, management and utilization of a road network in any society, the general purpose of this study is to produce a composite map and database that would serve as an archive for the road network within the University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus. In other to achieve this, primary and secondary data were acquired through direct field observations using Automatic level, attribute data of the existing roads from Physical Planning Unit of the campus and Geo-referenced Satellite Imagery of the study area. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technique and AutoCAD land development software was used to process the acquired data. The processed data was integrated in QGIS (an open source application) environment and a database of the road network was designed and developed using PostgreSQL/PostGIS software. This provides an avenue for spatial querying of the various attributes of the roads. Quantum GIS software was used in this project because it is open source software that provides an avenue for spatial querying of the various attributes of the roads. This study also provides a detailed description, and classifications of the road networks, the functional classification includes: Road Name, Road Class (Major and Minor), Road Geometry (Width, Length, Profile Diagram). The results of this study include: A Map of the road network within the campus, Map of profile diagrams of the un-tarred roads and Database of the road network. This work is a pilot project, which can be carried out on a larger scale and other attributes like the drainage system, vehicular movement, maintenance due date, road construction date, etc. may be included among other things.