The advent of GIS technology enables a direct link between a GIS and AES programs.
A central data base provides input and output storage for AES modeling nodes, links, and subareas. A common data base structure enables the user to link a GIS to the data base for read/write access. AES programs link directly to the same common data base. Features include

2,100 attributes for each node
250 attributes for each subarea
400 attributes for each link