Time Chainage chart

[bernie.storrier]

hi,

i was wondering if anyone has used a combination of visio and access to create a time chainage chart (sometimes called time location chart, time chainage graph, time distance chart, line of balance chart).

i have been requested to investigate the feasibility of using an access database to hold information on project tasks that have time and location attributes and to display the information using visio.  this is for railway track and overhead electrical maintenance work, and would include information such as work areas, overhead electrical isolationed areas, track machine paths through multiple areas etc.

i am aware there are a few software tools that do this (e.g. TILOS or LinearPlus) however i have a lot of the information in an access database already.

thanks in advance

bernie

[Yacine]

Bernie,
do you have some links, where one can read something about these graphs? A quick google search did not show sufficient results.

[bernie.storrier]

yacine,

there's not much around is there!

a couple of links that may give you some idea are:

http://astadev.in/software/products/pdf/astatimechainage.pdf
http://www.pclarke.co.uk/html/time_chainage.html

a very short description - time on the y-axis, distance (location) along the x-axis.  the shapes that create the diagram/chart reflect the work type over a period of time, across a particular distance.  e.g. a rectangle shape to show overhead maintenance work that starts at 6am and ends at 6pm, and occurs along the railway corridor for 10 kilometres.

a typical maintenance day for both civil maintenance (on the track) and for overhead electrical maintenance may have up to 15 different work sites over a 200km part of the rail system with the earliest start time of 6am and the latest finish time of 6pm.  the 15 work sites may start and end anytime within the 12 hour window.

the time chainage chart shows where there may be work site overlaps, where it may not be possible to get an on-track machine from one worksite to another because there is a worksite between the two that has the track cut, where some tasks may be distance critical and whether there are potential impacts from other worksites, etc.


bernie

[wapperdude]

Couldn't this be in Excel?  Bar graph?

Just a thought.

Wapperdude

[bernie.storrier]

unfortunately no - there are diagonal lines (e.g. for track machine movements) and other irregular shapes.

see especially the first link for an example of a time chainage diagram

[Yacine]

Hi Bernie,

I had some time to play. Thank you for giving us the opportunity. Very nice, those time chainage charts.

Have a look at the attachment, I think it is close to the image, your first link shows.
I did also the linking to a database (actually an excel file, but you should overcome this hurdle)

I don't know how deep you dived already in Visio, so if you don't get the details of the solution, let me know.

[Yacine]

.

[Yacine]

Thought the shapes deserve some better positioning options and - after the 10th re-coloring - a color property (excuse me P.).

... and google maps makes u dream ...  

[Yacine]

.

[Paul Herber]

a color property (excuse me P.).

shade, tint, hue ...

[bernie.storrier]

all (especially yacine),

thanks very much for what you have provided.  in simple terms it is what i have been looking to do. 

the next stage is making sure i can massage the data i currently have in an access db into the format i'll need and then be able to manipulate the shape values appropriately (start of shape, end of shape, the shape itself, orientation, etc). 

i have already developed a planning tool to display work sites on a geographical visio layout that takes data from a corporate application with an SQL backend into an access db, manipulate the data and then dependng on date ranges selected, display on the visio diagram.  this will be an extension of that project.

again, thanks.


bernie