Highway and transportation engineers now have a
powerful new tool that will impact the way they make decisions and do
business. High-resolution Earth imagery from Space Imaging’s IKONOS
satellite will help these professionals better plan, monitor and evaluate
highway and corridor construction projects anywhere on Earth.
“Satellite-based, high-resolution imagery will become indispensable for the
transportation industry because it provides the dramatic detail and accuracy
needed to precisely execute the largest or smallest projects,” said Brian
Soliday, vice president of Space Imaging North American sales and marketing.
“When combined with local GIS and base-map information, IKONOS imagery will
offer integrated solutions to planners faced with managing the challenges of
America’s growing transportation infrastructure.”
Space Imaging’s high-resolution satellite images, marketed under the
company’s CARTERRA(tm) brand name, are state-of-the-art products for the
transportation field. The one-meter resolution panchromatic
(black-and-white) and four-meter multispectral (color) images, collected by
the IKONOS satellite, have clarity that is the first of its kind in the
commercial market. IKONOS images show detailed features such as cars and
street centerlines, and can even help pinpoint precise problem areas in
sections of a highway or road. Transportation and highway management
professionals can use the digital images for:
* assessing the need for new or wider highways
* designing alternate routes during construction projects
* monitoring the progress of construction projects
* evaluating traffic congestion
* creating and updating road maps
* identifying areas experiencing wear to organize resurfacing or
repainting projects* planning roads through areas of new urban development
* determining emergency evacuation routes
“IKONOS provides the macro view for planners to help find the most suitable
corridor for construction with the least impact on the environment,” said
Roger King, director of the National Consortium on Remote Sensing and
Transportation at Mississippi State University. “Imagery can be used to help
understand the ground terrain beyond the corridor itself to see the
potential impact on the environment, watersheds and the community at large.”
IKONOS image products are sold according to customer requirements. Prices
range from $30-$45/sq.mi ($12-$17/sq.km) for North America (with a minimum
order of $1,000 for archive imagery or $3,000 for new acquisitions) or
$75-$112/sq.mi ($29-$44/sq.km) for regions outside of North America (with a
minimum order of $2,000 for archive imagery or $6,000 for new acquisitions).
CARTERRA products can be ordered through Space Imaging’s Customer Service
Center at (301) 552-0537 or (800) 232-9037. More information about these and
other CARTERRA products is available on the Web site at
http://www.spaceimaging.com.
About Space Imaging
Space Imaging is a leading supplier of visual information products derived
from space imagery and aerial photography. The company launched the world’s
first and only one-meter resolution, commercial Earth imaging satellite,
IKONOS, on Sept. 24, 1999. Other CARTERRA products are produced from the
Indian Remote Sensing satellites, the U.S. Landsat, Canada’s RADARSAT and
Europe’s ERS satellites. Space Imaging also delivers aerial-derived imagery
products collected by its own Digital Airborne Imaging System (DAIS-1(tm)).
NOTE TO PHOTO EDITORS: Images of an overpass construction project in
Phoenix, Arizona, a highway construction project near downtown Fort Worth,
Texas, an image of downtown Atlanta, Georgia and a clover-leaf interchange
in Beijing, China are available on the Web for illustration and publishing
purposes at http://newswire.spaceimaging.com.