Enhancement of decision support process in road administration domain with the use of GIS technology

In recent years, geographic information systems and spatial database technology are fast spreading across the tight circles of experts, working in the fields of geography and geodesy. In the first wave, GIS functions have been built into engineering applications, which were not just GIS centered (as for example road design, emission calculation, building site-plan etc.). The use has been accelerated through the component technology, which simplifies the insertion of GIS components into a variety of applications-including administration. We describe the upgrading of the business information system of the Slovenian road administration: basic application user interfaces were enriched with a specialized GIS component, which enables a fast and clear (geo)graphical view of the data about the selected part of the road network. The simplicity of using this intelligent digital map (as we named this specialized component) makes it possible to effectively and clearly display the relevant information, which is so necessary in the process of decision making. Besides, there is no need to leave the application the user is familiar with.