The State requested a GIS-based route planning tool. More than 50 raster data layers were assembled within ArcView 3.2, encompassing a full spectrum of demographic, physical, and cultural features. These data layers were given a numerical rating using multicriteria decision making software and input from professionals from a variety of fields. The multicriteria decision making software then set the relative importance of these surface features as impediments or attractors, creating a travel-cost surface. This synthesis of technologies, combined in a tool termed AMIS (Analytic Minimum Impedance Surface), found the least-cost path to any point within the study area
