Special Branch Information Systems (SBIS)

In principle, each of the GIS variants LIS, NIS, SIS and EIS described so far represent special branch IS from the point of view of the respective discipline. However, due to the specific nature of each discipline, there is still a larger group of GIS applications that are not covered by the previous mentioned IS. These include in particular special applications in the areas of marketing and sales (geomarketing, location planning), transport, logistics and traffic (fleet management, vehicle navigation), telecommunications (mobile radio, transmitter location planning), but also applications in construction, health care, emergency services, etc. This is illustrated by three examples.

• GIS applications in transport and traffic are available in numerous ways. Examples are the support of vehicle navigation (ships, aircraft, cars and others), the provision of digital and analogue maps for traffic management, fleet management, the investigation of accidents and the logistical handling of transport processes. As a rule, the GIS manages and processes linear objects, thus showing analogies to the NIS area. In the municipal environment, for example, vehicle fleets can be organized or transport routes for waste disposal can be optimized.
• Geodemographic applications combine various data collections and applications on social issues under a common spatial reference and thus have similarities with the SIS field. This involves the development and application of surface typologies that can be used to study consumer behaviour and market analysis from a spatial perspective. Essentially, the areas of retail trade analysis, public supply planning, market and election research, real estate management and banking profit from this. The goal is, for example, targeted marketing that takes into account spatially and socially different consumer behavior (Herter and Mühlbauer 2018).
• The entire range of emergency services, e.g. police, fire brigade, emergency ambulance, can be improved by means of GIS. The combination of GIS with road data and vehicle navigation systems can be used both in the operations centre and in the moving vehicle from the location of the incoming emergency call via the fastest route to the scene (Seip, Bill and Kinskofer, 2015).