Patent ID: 6873949

Claim:
A computer implemented system for managing geographically distributed assets, comprising: a master database populated with asset entries associated with said geographically distributed assets, said asset entries each being associated with one of the geographically distributed assets and having an identification indicator, a geographic location indicator, and at least one characteristic attribute indicator, and geographic entries, said geographic entries each defining a geographic area and having an identification indicator, and a restricted area indicator; a processor; and a computer readable medium encoded with processor readable instructions that when executed by the processor implement, a geo-spatial query generating mechanism that generates a geo-spatial query containing at least one of the identification indicator, the geographic location indicator, and the at least one characteristic attribute associated with a subset of geographically distributed assets, a selection mechanism configured to select asset entries corresponding to the subset of the geographically distributed assets based on the geo-spatial query, and a route generating mechanism configured to generate a route from a first location to at least one of the geographically distributed assets, the route identifying the geographic areas corresponding to geographic entries populated with a predetermined restricted area indicator value, wherein the geographically distributed assets comprise at least one of electric power transmission equipment and natural gas transmission equipment.