Database Management System Essentials

Database management systems play an essential role in most modern transportation management, administrative, and control systems. Therefore, transportation professionals are often responsible for making design, development, operations, and maintenance decisions concerning database management systems. In addition, many transportation professionals are users of database management systems to support their responsibilities. Clearly, in order to effectively accomplish their mission, transportation professionals do not need to be database experts. However, a basic understanding of database management systems has become important. This course emphasizes the importance of database design, use, and management to ITS. The module begins with a general description of databases and database management systems, including the relationships that exist among a database, a DBMS, and an application. Relational database tables, Entity-Relationship Models, and the role of metadata are discussed in detail. Finally, the module describes SQL, and explores the role of databases in data warehousing and Geographic Information Systems.