GIS Best Practices

Using GIS with GPS

June 2007

Table of Contents
What Is GIS? Using GIS with GPS Spreading Data Improves Crop Yield Edgecombe County, North Carolina, Maps and Inventories Water/Wastewater Infrastructure with GIS and GPS Dominion and Verizon Use Mobile GIS and GPS to Conduct Joint-Use Pole Survey GIS and GPS Integration Eases Public Road Inventory Fighting Fires in the 21st Century Maintaining Accurate Data During Brownfield Site Redevelopment Excavation Lifestyle-Oriented Location-Based Services Deliver Maps to Fine-Tune Outdoor and Exercise Experiences 1 3 5 9 15 19 23 29 33

What Is GIS?
Making decisions based on geography is basic to human thinking. Where shall we go, what will it be like, and what shall we do when we get there are applied to the simple event of going to the store or to the major event of launching a bathysphere into the ocean's depths. By understanding geography and people's relationship to location, we can make informed decisions about the way we live on our planet. A geographic information system (GIS) is a technological tool for comprehending geography and making intelligent decisions. GIS organizes geographic data so that a person reading a map can select data necessary for a specific project or task. A thematic map has a table of contents that allows the reader to add layers of information to a basemap of real-world locations. For example, a social analyst might use the basemap of Eugene, Oregon, and select datasets from the U.S. Census Bureau to add data layers to a map that shows residents' education levels, ages, and employment status. With an ability to combine a variety of datasets in an infinite number of ways, GIS is a useful tool for nearly every field of knowledge from archaeology to zoology. A good GIS program is able to process geographic data from a variety of sources and integrate it into a map project. Many countries have an abundance of geographic data for analysis, and governments often make GIS datasets publicly available. Map file databases often come included with GIS packages; others can be obtained from both commercial vendors and government agencies. Some data is gathered in the field by global positioning units that attach a location coordinate (latitude and longitude) to a feature such as a pump station. GIS maps are interactive. On the computer screen, map users can scan a GIS map in any direction, zoom in or out, and change the nature of the information contained in the map. They can choose whether to see the roads, how many roads to see, and how roads should be depicted. Then they can select what other items they wish to view alongside these roads such as storm drains, gas lines, rare plants, or hospitals. Some GIS programs are designed to perform sophisticated calculations for tracking storms or predicting erosion patterns. GIS applications can be embedded into common activities such as verifying an address. From routinely performing work-related tasks to scientifically exploring the complexities of our world, GIS gives people the geographic advantage to become more productive, more aware, and more responsive citizens of planet Earth.

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Using GIS with GPS

By Brent Jones, Survey/Engineering Industry Solutions Manager, ESRI The global positioning system (GPS) has been one of the great enablers of GIS technology. From homeland security and emergency response to utility asset management and environmental remediation, GPS has provided new capabilities and efficiencies in GIS. Originally designed and built for national defense purposes, GPS has grown into a new ubiquitous utility. The following articles present just a few of the many new and powerful implementations integrating GPS into GIS applications and workflows. Only the imagination limits what the integration of precise and often real-time positions into GIS can deliver. From delivering subcentimeter positions to GIS engineering applications to calculating daily volumes of hazardous materials to managing critical infrastructure assets for telecommunications and electric service to providing critical real-time locations of emergency response vehicles, GPS has touched our lives in many ways. As you read the following articles, imagine new ways that real-time and accurate GPS positions can power new applications to your GIS. If you are using GPS and not using GIS, think about how GIS can easily manage your location data and provide new levels of visualization and analysis. GPS is one of the great new technologies of our lifetime, and its integration with GIS delivers powerful applications to improve our daily lives.

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Spreading Data Improves Crop Yield

New Zealand Fertilizer Application System Uses GIS/GPS
Technology enables farmers to become more discerning about crop management. Modern precision farming techniques incorporate geospatial technologies to help farmers increase economic yield. Using data from satellites and aircraft, precision farmers can pinpoint problems with drainage, insects, and weeds. They learn where fertilizers are needed and where they are not. Technology has made fertilizer application a precise science. With these methods, farmers have greater control of crop yields before they plant a seed. In past generations, farmers tended to spread fertilizer evenly over the entire field. Now spreading methods can be more exact by type, quantity, and location of application. Decking the cockpit of the spray rig with computerized controllers and GPS navigation systems is an approach to farming that is both friendly to the environment and profitable to the farmer. Ravensdown, New Zealand's largest manufacturer and distributor of fertilizers, is using geospatial technology for applying fertilizers that helps New Zealand farmers save money and also protects the environment. By using GIS and GPS to direct application of fertilizers, farmers reduce the amount of potentially harmful runoff of fertilizers into streams and waterways. At the same time, they are reducing their total expenditures on fertilizers by up to 10 percent per annum. Ravensdown worked with ESRI's New Zealand distributor Eagle Technology Group to design the solution that is built on ArcGIS Server software. The system accurately records where and how much fertilizer has been applied to a certain area. This information is merged with digital orthophotos and the farm's relational databases to create a vivid picture of the farm's overall soil sustainability. A key concept in New Zealand agriculture is the nutrient budget, which measures all of a farm's nutrient inputs and outputs, including fertilizers, feeds, and farm produce. Ravensdown's new GIS-based system helps farmers optimize their nutrient budget and ensure that their soils receive just the right amount of fertilizers for high crop yield. Ravensdown and Eagle collaborated closely during the implementation process. The system integrated GIS, GPS, wireless transmission, and Internet and intranet technologies, as well as data from various sources. Ravensdown's GIS architecture includes ArcGIS Server, ArcSDE,
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Once the data has been uploaded and processed, Ravensdown field staff members can log on to the system from a remote location via the Internet. They can call up a customers farm, see the results of earlier soil tests, see what types of fertilizers have been applied, then make recommendations about which types of fertilizers are appropriate. may 2007  USInG GIS wIth GPS

ArcIMS, and ArcGIS Explorer. Once the raw spatial and attribute data is captured from GPS transceivers on the spreader trucks, it is transmitted wirelessly to Ravensdown's facility where it is loaded into the GIS and processed in near real time. Ravensdown had already equipped a number of its fertilizer application trucks with GPScontrolled guidance systems and spreaders that captured location, fertilizer type, and spreading data. The GIS creates a map-based display that shows fertilizer application data as a series of color-coded "snail trails" that are overlaid on the map, giving a very good representation of the process. An additional benefit is that the system can be used as evidence of "proof of placement" to demonstrate that the fertilizer has been spread in a manner consistent with best environmental practices. Once the data has been uploaded and processed, Ravensdown field staff members can log on to the system from a remote location via the Internet. They can call up a customer's farm, see the results of earlier soil tests, see what types of fertilizers have been applied, and then make recommendations about which types of fertilizers are
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Ravensdown had already equipped a number of its fertilizer application trucks with GPScontrolled guidance systems and spreaders that captured location, fertilizer type, and spreading data.

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appropriate. The company's call center representatives have access to the same information and can immediately access this information from its customer relationship management (CRM) system, again in map format. This gives service representatives all the information they need to resolve most phone queries from clients. Maps can be delivered in printed format, e-mailed, or faxed to clients. Eagle used the development capabilities available in ArcGIS Server to embed the map interface in Ravensdown's CRM system. Ravensdown wanted seamless access to the spatial and attribute data, so Eagle Technology developers used the .NET framework to build an interactive map viewer that call center staff can access with a click of the mouse. Staff members can query the database, manipulate the display, and print or fax hard-copy maps. This same model will be used to expand the system to Internet-based users in the future. Ravensdown has had an ongoing program of using geospatial technology to improve services to clients. Its Digital Farm Mapping service combines orthophotos from Terralink and agricultural farm management software from AgResearch to support its clients. The fertilizer-spreading application complements this mapping service and gives the company more capabilities to expand in the future. Ravensdown is planning to build on this foundation. "Eventually, we want to enable our clients to log in to an enhanced system from their own Internet browsers," says Mark McAtamney, CIO at Ravensdown. "We also want to incorporate GIS into our quoting system to calculate the road distance between our depots and the fields to be fertilized. The distance is a significant component of the cost to our clients. We are just scratching the surface when it comes to developing further applications for the system." (Reprinted from the Winter 200/2007 issue of ArcNews magazine)

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Edgecombe County, North Carolina, Maps and Inventories Water/Wastewater Infrastructure with GIS and GPS
Field Mapping Time Cut in Half
Charm, hospitality, and environmental stewardship are the three qualities for which Edgecombe County, North Carolina, likes to be known. Located between the city of Raleigh and the famous North Carolina beaches, the county's brick-paved sidewalks and town commons preserve its charm, while the natural friendliness of the ,000 residents makes Edgecombe a hospitable tourist destination. The county government is doing its part to carry on the tradition of protecting the natural resources. As is occurring in much of the United States, a predominantly agricultural economy is gradually giving way to manufacturing and other light industry. But rather than welcome just any factory or plant into the county, Edgecombe business developers have set their sights on attracting environmentally friendly companies. Specifically, they want to make sure that new businesses don't pollute the freshwater aquifer. "Environmental stewardship is a lifestyle here," says County Manager Lorenzo Carmon. "The state informed us a few years ago that the aquifer is drying up, which motivated us to better safeguard the water supply." That motivation led to a $40 million engineering and construction project that will eventually replace the entire water and wastewater system in the 0-square-mile county. In early 200, about midway through the project, Edgecombe decided to initiate a parallel project that would map and inventory the entire water/wastewater infrastructure, both old and new. This database would reside inside the county's existing GIS. This project would require field mapping more than two dozen feature types and collecting up to 1 attributes per feature along 400 linear miles of water and sewer transmission mains. Mapping crews would have to accurately locate and collect attribute information for every pressurized line, gravity line, manhole, control valve, storage tank, fire hydrant, meter vault, and pump station. Mapping would drill down to the level of individual pump stations and meter vaults, including their method of treatment and the types of pumps and meters they contain.
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Overlaying corrected data on an orthophoto.

The decision to map the water/wastewater infrastructure was driven by three factors: As the new system ages, an accurate database of component locations and conditions will be required for efficient management and maintenance. A GIS database would enable the county to more easily meet the reporting requirements of the U.S. Government Accounting Standards Board directive known as GASB 4, which mandates that all local governments maintain detailed inventories of their infrastructure assets for accounting purposes. County residents and businesses may qualify for reduced fire insurance rates if certain water access standards are met, including the availability of detailed fire hydrant location maps.
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Without the staff to perform the mapping, Edgecombe turned to The Wooten Company, a Raleigh-based engineering, planning, and architectural design firm. The county chose Wooten because the firm already was performing the preconstruction engineering work for the water/ wastewater upgrade project and was, therefore, familiar with the components to be mapped. The county also knew that Wooten maintained survey crews for site mapping projects. Known for its willingness to adopt new technologies to accommodate the diverse and changing needs of its clients, the firm saw both a challenge and an opportunity in the mapping contract. For previous asset mapping projects, Wooten had exclusively used traditional survey technology in the field; however, with a two-month deadline and thousands of features to collect, the firm knew it couldn't use survey equipment to complete the project. The time was right for its planned switch to GPS technology for field mapping. Wooten decided to use Trimble's GeoExplorer series. This product line had been selected because it combines a submeter GPS receiver and a handheld GIS data collection computer in a single ruggedized unit for rapid collection of attribute and location data. But before making the purchase, Wooten wanted to ensure there would be direct compatibility between the new GPS equipment and the firm's existing suite of ESRI GIS software. It planned to build the Edgecombe geodatabase with ArcView . Alex Fuller, Wooten GIS coordinator, says, "We knew from experience that to get maximum benefits from two technologies that are meant to work together, the integration between them must be fast, seamless, and easy." The engineering firm obtained a bundled hardware-software package, which included a Trimble GeoExplorer GeoXT equipped with ESRI's ArcPad mobile GIS software and the Trimble GPScorrect postprocessing extension. In addition, Wooten acquired Trimble's GPS Analyst, a new ArcGIS extension that creates a seamless work flow between GPS data collected in the field and the enterprise geodatabase in the office. Edgecombe County's only existing water/sewer system schematic resided in CAD format and was not drawn in such a way that it could be readily referenced into the geodatabase. Wooten printed the diagrams as field workbooks to assist in locating system features in the field. With guidance from the county, the firm's GIS specialists generated data models, or classification structures, of the attributes that would be collected in the field for each type of infrastructure asset and created a geodatabase based on the data model that had been created. Attribute and location data would be gathered simultaneously during the field mapping.
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Checking in raw GPS data using GPS Analyst toolbar.

At the beginning of each day's fieldwork, which mostly takes place on the dusty shoulders of roads and highways running beside the water pipe rights-of-way, Wooten technicians open the GPS Analyst program running inside ArcGIS on a laptop computer to "check out" the datasets to be mapped. This means the geodatabase files relating to those infrastructure features that will be mapped or updated are selected and uploaded by USB cable link from the laptop into the handheld GeoXT. In the field, ArcPad displays a schematic of the water system assets that will be mapped. As the field crew finds each feature, an on-screen point-and-click menu generated from the data file assists the user in collecting the desired attribute information. As the crew member enters the descriptive data into ArcPad, the GPS receiver records 20 location points for each feature
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in less than one minute. This location data is stored with the other attribute data in the mobile geodatabase inside the GeoXT. "Usually the record drawing gives us a pretty good idea of where the pipes run," says Fuller, "so we know where to look for valves and other features, but sometimes we find a fire hydrant where there is no record of one existing. We simply add it to the database. This is where field mapping will really pay off for the county." Completely transparent to the Wooten field technician, the Trimble GPScorrect extension is also running inside ArcPad, collecting additional data from the GPS satellites that will be required later to postprocess the location data recorded by the receiver. Differential postprocessing allows the crew to enhance the accuracy of the location data to less than one meter. "This mobile GIS solution has more than doubled the number of small features, such as valves, manholes, and fire hydrants, that we can collect in a day compared to traditional survey techniques," says Fuller. Once the fieldwork has been completed for the day, the crew reconnects the GPS receiver with the laptop computer to download field data into the ArcGIS geodatabase. Working in ArcGIS, the GIS specialist then accesses GPS Analyst to differentially correct and edit the GPS points collected in the field. Differential correction of GPS data previously involved exporting the GPS data to an external software package first, but now Wooten technicians perform the task of postprocessing data within the geodatabase. They click on the differential correction tool and select from a list of local reference station sources. The differential correction wizard within GPS Analyst assists in determining which source provides the best coverage for that day's points, then connects with the base data provider to access the appropriate correction data. The software completes the postprocessing automatically inside ArcGIS within minutes compared with the hour or more it once took to export data and correct it externally. The GPS Analyst extension also allows the Wooten field crews to validate GPS points by visualizing each of the 20 location values collected for every fire hydrant and manhole shown on-screen. By looking at the data cluster, they can determine which points are not consistent with the others. With a mouse click, these errant points can be deleted to improve the average value of the remaining points and thus the accuracy of the overall feature map.

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Once the field data has been collected, Wooten overlays the new layer of water and wastewater features on a digital orthophotograph of Edgecombe County. Many of the larger assets, such as pump stations, water storage tanks, and meter vaults, are readily visible on the orthophoto. GIS specialists compare the location of the features mapped in the field with those visible on the orthophoto. They have determined accuracy of the data collection is well within the one meter mandated by Edgecombe County. (Reprinted from the Summer 200 issue of ArcNews magazine)

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Dominion and Verizon Use Mobile GIS and GPS to Conduct Joint-Use Pole Survey
By Randy Trott, Timmons Group Dominion Virginia Power and Verizon, two large companies providing power and phone service to their clients, share thousands of poles in their combined service territories in an effort to reduce the number of poles placed in the field. Utility poles are used to attach devices (e.g., transformers) and circuit lines. Some poles are shared and have attachments from multiple companies; in the utility industry, these shared poles are termed "joint use." Pole owners gain revenue by leasing space to other companies with the amount of revenue based on the number of leased attachments. Traditionally, it has been difficult to track pole ownership, attachments, and leasing revenues. The federal and state mandates require periodic rate adjustments associated with joint-use agreements. Utility companies must maintain accurate records of pole ownership and joint-use status for utility poles in combined service areas. Pole inventories and attachments are very dynamic. Poles are highly susceptible to man-made and natural occurrences, and once damaged, they must be replaced. Other changes can affect pole-related data: overhead circuits are often rerouted or placed underground, and new commercial and residential developments require infrastructure growth, meaning more power and phone service. Many utility companies are using joint-use surveys to update pole ownership and joint-use status to meet standards and reporting requirements. In the past, paper maps were used in the field as a guide for referencing pole locations as well as for plotting their location for future identification. Information was handwritten and converted to digital format in the office. This was a typical scenario before the introduction of mobile computers and GPS and GIS technologies. Dominion and Verizon contracted with ESRI Business Partner Timmons Group, a full-service GIS consulting firm headquartered in Virginia, to conduct a joint-use survey in their combined territories located throughout Virginia. Dominion and Verizon chose Timmons Group for its qualifications, including field crews, extensive experience with GPS technologies, and a geospatial applications development group needed to undertake this project. The survey consisted of collecting GPS coordinates and attribute information on 20,000 poles associated
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This image shows the customized ArcView interface and joint-use collection tool. Inset: The joint-use collection tab.

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with 16,000 miles of service lines, using an average of 10 field technicians working at any given time. Timmons Group helped the two companies develop a method to collect joint-use and ownership data in an efficient and accurate manner. Data was captured and submitted as a final product digitally. This digital information provided a spatially enabled database and the framework for a GIS. Timmons Group deployed a team of surveyors equipped with mobile pen tablets, such as the Fujitsu 00. These systems were chosen based on their mobility, outdoor screen readability, Windows 2000 compatibility, and ability to interface with a GPS receiver using a standard RS-232 serial port. The Trimble PRO XR Pathfinder system was chosen to fulfill the GPS component because of its ability to collect real-time corrected positions.

Applications Development

A crucial component of the solution was a GIS-enabled asset inventory software application based on ESRI's suite of desktop applications. This solution needed to integrate with GIS and GPS and support multiple technicians collecting data in the field for long periods of time. The application component that was scoped, designed, and ultimately built allows users to view electrical devices, circuits, and other supporting GIS base layers. In addition, users are provided with a user-friendly interface to facilitate the collection of joint-use data. Data is captured in an ESRI geodatabase customized to meet the business requirements of both Dominion and Verizon. Poles, number, and type of attachments were captured for all joint-use poles. This facilitated the quantification of leasing factors for any given pole in the shared service area. The joint-use collection application consists of a suite of asset inventory tools to enable field personnel to collect and store utility pole asset attributes and coordinate data collected using GPS. Visual Basic and ESRI's ArcObjects were used to build a customized common object model-based extension to ArcView. A joint-use toolbar was built to house collection, query, modification, and edit tools for spatial and attribute information. Trimble Pathfinder Tools Software Development Kit (SDK) and Visual Basic were used to develop the GPS interface. The GPS receiver component handles all communications between the GPS receiver and the application, including the configuration and supply of real-time differential corrections from radio beacons and satellites. Coordinate transformation and unit conversion components included in SDK were also utilized to convert the utility data collected into the Virginia State Plane projection. The SSF Writer component was used to customize the creation of an SSF file with unique point records that could be related back to the GIS data after postprocessing and differential correction. The application provided real-time status feeds into the ArcMap

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application within ArcView to display GPS information, such as position dilution of precision (PDOP), differential global positioning system (DGPS), and satellite availability and position collection directly onto the custom toolbar. The Tablet PC Support for the ArcView extension from ESRI was utilized to achieve redlining and gesturing functionality. Tablet PC Support interfaces enabled functionality to be built, allowing the pen motion to be stored as Microsoft INK in an annotation feature class. Application users utilized this technology to draw, circle, and note assets in the field or identify potential problems during surveying. Other functionality was built into the application using Microsoft INK technologies to, for example, allow on-screen navigation through "gesturing." Users could draw a right arrow on the screen with a stylus. This gesture triggers the current view in the ArcMap document to pan to the right. The user interface was designed based on a rule-based matrix enabling a "smart" application, which would disable attribute choices that did not follow the logic inherent in the decision matrix. This served to reduce the amount of human error associated with collecting important attribute information. Joint-use surveys typically require a high accuracy standard. This rule-base matrix approach allowed for a higher-quality end product while reducing the amount of postprocessing associated with internal quality control efforts. Prior to development of this tool, 12 to 1 hours per week were spent on quality assurance/quality control efforts. With the correct hardware in place and a mobile GIS platform, a new method of conducting joint-use surveys was established for Dominion and Verizon. The ability to collect joint-use data and GPS coordinates in the field using mobile technology improved on old methods and now enables Dominion and Verizon to update and maintain joint-use data more effectively with the use of GIS. This article was written in conjunction with the Joint Use Department at Dominion. (Reprinted from the Winter 2004/200 issue of ArcNews magazine)

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GIS and GPS Integration Eases Public Road Inventory

South Dakota DOT Sets New Standard for Data Capture, Storage, Updating, and Editing
South Dakota is the geographic center of the United States. Farmers there cultivate the same land their great-great-grandfathers did, but now with the help of geospatial technology on fourwheel-drive tractors. It is just this technology that has allowed the South Dakota Department of Transportation (SDDOT) to accurately report local road miles, maintain an up-to-date inventory of local roads, provide updates for CAD-based mapping, and develop a dynamically segmented state highway system. South Dakota has ,000 miles of roads (serving 7,000 state residents). Of these roads, 7,00 miles are state, U.S., or interstate highways that are in the state highway (trunk) system. The remaining miles constitute 7,000 local, county, city, and township roads that are part of the nonstate trunk (NSTRI) system. GIS has been an invaluable asset to the SDDOT NSTRI program for the inventory and management of those local roads, along with map production and analysis of the state trunk system.

Step-by-Step History of Inventory and Management

Historically, several SDDOT lead crews were required to drive all state roads on a specific schedule to obtain and keep handwritten records of the physical features and surrounding attributes. These crews comprised SDDOT staff who drove the routes accompanied by various representatives of political entities to obtain records of change from previous collection cycles. Over the years, the number of SDDOT people associated with this process had declined for various reasons to the point where one staff person and seasonal employees could not perform the updates to physical features and surrounding attributes as needed. The SDDOT NSTRI program started out using DOS-based GPS data collection and PC ARC/INFO. In 1995, the SDDOT Planning and Development District III and 1st District Association of Local Governments entered into contracts in which the districts would provide the manpower to use GPS to collect road alignments, attributes, and structures that the SDDOT needed to update its roadway inventory database and convert the GPS data into ArcInfo

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South Dakota DOTs 2005 Traffic Flow Map.

coverages. In 17, SDDOT entered into the same type of contract with the Southeastern Council of Governments and the Northeastern Council of Governments. Governments and the Northeastern Council of Governments. Roadway attributes to be collected included road name, surface width, surface type, shoulder width, shoulder type, city code, county code, parking configuration, speed limits, and DMI (the length of the roadway segment). As ESRI technology has evolved through the numerical software releases, so has the SDDOT NSTRI program. Today's program uses ArcInfo 9.x Workstation and DOS-based GPS data collection. Some modifications have been made to the GPS data collection process to keep

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pace with the GIS. For the maintenance program, the planning districts supply SDDOT with yearly updates of ArcInfo coverages of roadway changes, additions, or deletions.

A New Standard

SDDOT's NSTRI program has set a new standard of personal geodatabases as the environment for roadway data capture, storage, updating, and editing. To help meet the new SDDOT GIS roadway inventory program standard, the planning districts, as independent contractors, chose GIS Workshop, Inc., of Lincoln, Nebraska, an ESRI Business Partner, to create a customized GPS data collection interface for Trimble's GPS Analyst software. The GPS software uses hot keys, pull downs, and pick lists in GPS Analyst to create new roads and modify SDDOT roadway alignments in ESRI personal geodatabases. These tools populate attribute fields with SDDOT predefined choices. The SDDOT roads data is being used by several private firms in the area, as well as several government agencies, including the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks' hunting atlas on walk-in areas; South Dakota Department of Natural Resources; the South Dakota Department of Revenue's sales tax revenue application; U.S. Census Bureau; U.S. Department of the Interior; and several South Dakota county GIS programs. After 10 years, SDDOT views this program as highly successful. Now, as a maintenance GIS/ GPS program, SDDOT receives yearly updates of road changes, additions, or deletions from the planning districts. (Reprinted from the Summer 200 issue of ArcNews magazine)

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Fighting Fires in the 21st Century

GIS, GPS, and AVL Technologies at the Hartford, Connecticut, Fire Department
By Ewe-Leng Lim, P.E., Chief Knowledge Officer, Institute of Information Technology, Inc. Back in 1639, the early settlers of Connecticut adopted the first document in history to establish a government by the consent of the people. That states's capital is the city of Hartford, Connecticut, with a population of more than 121,000, and the city's fire department is one of the oldest fire departments in the United States, being officially established in 1864. Today, the Hartford Fire Department (HFD) is one of 42 fire departments with a Class 1 ranking out of 33,000 fire departments in the nation, and it is adopting GIS, GPS, and automatic vehicle location (AVL) technology to help firefighters. A few years ago, HFD's first implementation of computer mapping technology used a simple GPS and AVL system to track the department's fire apparatus (vehicles) in real time. Although the system initially adopted was adequate in displaying where the vehicles were in real time, it lacked the ability to show other layers of interest to HFD, such as the locations of fire hydrants, water pipelines, building footprints, parcels, and aerial photos. More important, HFD wanted to make all that information available to the firefighters in the field where they could point to a hydrant on a digital map and quickly see information about the diameter of the connected pipeline to determine which hydrant to best use to fight a fire. In the past, the firefighters used huge foldout paper maps and schematic pipelines with hydrant sizes and locations that each fire vehicle carried around in a big three-ring binder. What was missing was the GIS component to the GPS/AVL application. With this deficiency in mind, deputy chief Eugene Cieri and Carolyn Shumate from the city of Hartford's Metro Hartford Information Services Division attended one of a series of mobile GIS seminars organized by ESRI's regional office in Danvers, Massachusetts. The Institute of Information Technology, Inc. (IIT), an ESRI Business Partner, was one of the presenters at that seminar where it showcased its eRouteTrackera combination of GIS, GPS, and AVL technologies that IIT had developed for the Newton Police Department, city of Newton, Massachusetts. This solution presented the missing GIS component that would meet the needs of HFD.

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Web browser showing real-time movement of vehicles on a map of the city of Hartford. Users can select a vehicle in the tabular view below the map to locate and center the vehicle on the map display.

In early 2004, with the joint support and approval of chief of fire Charles Teale; chief of police Patrick Harnett; and the city's deputy finance director, Lydia Rosario, IIT started a pilot program of an integrated GIS, GPS, and AVL solution for both the HFD and the Hartford Police Department. The pilot, which took full advantage of ArcIMS and MapObjects components, was very successful in quickly demonstrating the possibilities of GIS to provide more than just background information for a vehicle tracking application.
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Teale, along with deputy chief Daniel Nolan who heads the fire training academy, came up with the concept of a Community Safety Information (CSI) system that would enable the department to gather voluntary information from the general public to help HFD be better prepared before getting to the scene. "There'll be a constant reminder to the general public to contact us with the information they want us to know, so that we will know what we're dealing with," says Teale. "Included in the CSI program is the capture of building images from all sides of the building. The goal is to have firefighters get to scenes faster, be better informed ahead of time, and make the public safer." During an actual scene of a fire captured by the local news, Nolan says, "With this system, we were able to identify the hydrants outside of the addresses, the water mains, the sizes of the water mains, and information inside the househow many children, their ages, if they have any ailments, or if there is anyone with a disability." Teale further emphasized that HFD is taking a proactive approach to show that it cares for the safety of the public. HFD applied for and received GIS-related grant funding for homeland security-related projects, which has helped the department further enhance the application. Part of the grant was applied to obtaining newer equipment, including laptops, wireless modems, cellular services, and a thermal printer that provides outputs on waterproof paper for use in the field to print information on chemical hazards, etc. Feedback from the field is continually being incorporated into new releases of the application. The basic solution from IIT uses ArcIMS as the Web-based mapping service on top of some AVL server components developed in Java programming language (J2EE) to receive, parse, store, and display vehicle locations in real time on a Web browser client user interface. This Web-based browser client is available to all personnel with the proper login/authentication within the city's intranet. In addition, a rich mobile software client was developed in C# programming language using MapObjects to provide the mobile data computers (MDCs) installed in each fire apparatus with a real-time in-vehicle navigation system along with the GIS layers displayed. The MDC AVL clients communicate with the AVL server in real time to retrieve and display additional information, such as computer-aided dispatch incident locations and hazardous zones, generated by authorized users with the proper security authentications. Aerial photos overlaid with other GIS layers provided the fire commanders with information previously not available, such as the layout of buildings relative to images of parking lots, fenced access, building quadrangles, etc., to better determine the best staging area or alternate access
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to a specific building structure. In addition, the software provides routing capabilities to show the quickest route to get to the scene of a fire. The MDC client has role-based security, which means, for example, a supervisor user will be able to see all vehicles in real time while regular users may only see their own vehicles. "This is a good example of how we can combine different cutting-edge technologies, such as J2EE and .NET, into one seamless application while leveraging an organization's existing infrastructure," explains Sergiy Savchenko, IIT's technical lead on this project. The MDC AVL clients are deployed on rugged touch screen Panasonic Toughbook laptops to meet the harsh environments associated with firefighting equipment. The touch screen and simple user interface make it easy for firefighters to navigate the mapping environment and obtain the information they need literally at their fingertips. "I could see there was a vacant parking lot back there, and that in itself was advantageous to report to the incoming company to utilize the back to stop the progression of the fire on the rear side of the building," says deputy chief Carlos Huertas, describing a recent incident where he used the application to direct response to a firefighting scene.

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A customized tool allows the user to point to and click a building footprint on the map to bring up any Community Safety Information collected, including any images of the building taken from different sides or even scanned blueprints of building layouts.

(Reprinted from the Summer 200 issue of ArcNews magazine)

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Maintaining Accurate Data During Brownfield Site Redevelopment Excavation

The City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Manages a Remedial Excavation with GIS
The City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, planned to redevelop a Brownfield site (i.e., land known to contain pollutants or contaminants) just outside the central business district as  single-family housing units. The property historically consisted of approximately 0 parcels with various land uses, including residential, commercial, and industrial, dating to the late 100s. In the 10s, the site was cleared and filled for a proposed freeway that was never built. Most recently, the site was used as a neighborhood park. With the various historical site transformations, the soil on the site could be classified into three different categories: Contaminant levels below residential limits (soil staying on-site) Contaminant levels exceeding residential limits but below industrial limits (soil transported to an industrial site) Contaminant levels exceeding industrial limits (soil transported to a landfill) The varying levels of contamination and destinations of soil disposal presented the following problems: tracking where the soil had been, determining where it was going, and calculating how much was to be moved. In addition, the data had to be collected rapidly to not interfere with the excavation, as well as have results to report the next business day. Finally, with a site that has multiple historic uses with varying levels and sources of contamination,  cells had to be created to be able to quantify excavation depths at specific locations. The City of Milwaukee had available Milwaukee County Automated Mapping Land Information System data of the entire site, but it needed someone to plan and manage the remedial excavation activities. Following extensive research, the city retained Symbiont (formerly Triad Engineering), a full-service engineering and consulting firm headquartered in West Allis, Wisconsin.

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3D visualization of excavated cells using GIS.

Symbiont used ArcView along with the ArcGIS D Analyst extension to calculate and manage data pertaining to the site. "Without using GIS, we could not have sustained such a rapid excavation pace while maintaining accurate data," says Michael Kumbera, former GIS specialist with Symbiont. Utilizing this data, a Leica subcentimeter GPS was used to map soil-boring locations on the site. After the soil boring data was analyzed, geologists derived areas of contamination and formulated cells based on depth of levels of contamination. These cells were digitized in ArcView and x,y coordinates were calculated at the cell corners. These coordinates were then exported to the GPS unit, and the cells were physically staked out on-site.

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With the site staked out, the excavation process was ready to begin. During the process, as many as two backhoes and 10 dump trucks were operating simultaneously to transport soil. Depending on the category of soil being excavated, soil was transported to either the on-site stockpile area, an industrial fill site, or the landfill location. During the excavation, the GPS unit was used to verify the elevation of the excavated soil. Therefore, site engineers could accurately determine how deep to excavate with subcentimeter accuracy. When the excavation for the cell was completed, data points were collected at several locations to verify the elevation of the entire cell for each specific soil type. This process continued rapidly with backhoes operating on different sections of the site. After the excavation activities concluded each day, the GPS data collected was imported into a geodatabase using ArcView. Since the excavation site was local, the data could be manipulated in an office using a desktop computer. Using the ArcGIS 3D Analyst extension, the coordinates collected were used to construct triangulated irregular networks (TINs). "The TINs were very representative of the site," says Kumbera. "We were able to clearly decipher historic foundations, manholes, and variations between cells." With the TINs created, cut/fill analyses were performed and the volume of soil excavated was calculated by cell and type. This enabled the excavators to know the daily volume totals of soil type as a measure of progress and as quality control.

Excavation of soil within cell boundaries. GIS BeSt PractIceS 1

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Telling the story of a site excavation in a meaningful manner can prove to be difficult. Verbally stating how deep soil was excavated at a location fails to provide a comprehensive picture of what really happened at the site. Using GIS to generate before and after topographic maps summed up the result with only two images. Displaying the TINs in one-foot intervals created a colorful yet meaningful project summary. Furthermore, being able to overlay planimetric data of the existing ground surface and the proposed site plan gave the ability to determine impacted cells relative to existing and proposed features. The results of using GIS to collect and manage excavation data proved to be very successful. The final volume of soil relocated was within one percent of initial preexcavation engineering estimates. Utilizing a subcentimeter GPS was the quickest and most accurate way of collecting data. It gave the excavators the opportunity to work at an optimal level, as well as provided a detailed log about what was being excavated and when. The presentation-quality graphics, provided by ArcView and the ArcGIS D Analyst extension, allowed those who could not physically be at the site to experience what had occurred and visually see the physical changes. The use of ArcView on this project saved time and money while producing highly accurate results. Project engineer Chris Gdak states, "Looking back at the project, I dont think there is any other way we could have done it."
Excavated cells with proposed site overlaid.

(Reprinted from the Winter 2006/2007 issue of ArcNews magazine)

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Lifestyle-Oriented Location-Based Services Deliver Maps to Fine-Tune Outdoor and Exercise Experiences
Via GIS, Mobile Phones and GPS Receivers Show Fitness and Location Data
It's nice to find a way to take technology out of the office. Instead of driving a computer mouse, some individuals might find themselves gripping handlebars as they guide bikes down a mountainside or programming an MP player as they take advantage of great summer weather for their daily jog. Those who are lucky enough will find themselves far from the hustle and bustle as they hike a trail or camp near a pristine mountain lake. Traditionally, GIS has been helpful to outdoor enthusiasts enjoying activities like these through producing maps and displaying GPS data. Now, several companies have found other innovative ways to put GIS to work. A new, fast-growing application area is emerging in the lifestyle-oriented location-based services product arena. Three companies, Bones in Motion, MotionBased Technologies, and Trimble Outdoors, are helping to grow this application area by collecting GPS data, analyzing the data for application-specific purposes, and finally displaying the information through social networking community Web portals. Each company focuses on different market areas, but all offer simple GPS data collection capabilities and use ESRI ArcWeb Services to provide the map data and mapping functionality behind their unique and innovative services. So, whether the outdoor enthusiasts are taking an evening walk with a traditional GPS receiver, training for a marathon with a GPS-enabled mobile phone, or hiking mountain ranges and taking GPS-tagged photos with mobile phones, these companies can help them get the most out of their outdoor experiences.

Bones in Motion

Bones in Motion (BiM) was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. Its first service offering launching later this year is BiM Active, a Web and wireless location-based health and fitness application that helps individuals track their outdoor activities and their personal training and fitness goals. By using a simple-to-use GPS-enabled mobile phone, both casual and competitive athletes can use BiM Active to collect GPS data for their workout information; upload that information to the BiM Active portal; and view workout metrics, maps,

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BiM Active users chart and map GPS workouts on their mobile phones and on the Web.

and progress charts on both the mobile phone and through a Web browser. Members can register for BiM Active either on the Web or on their mobile phone. Once registered, all recorded information, such as speed, calories burned, and distance traveled, is stored in a personal
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online fitness journal at www.bimactive.com. Individual fitness journals and favorite activity locations can be shared with other members or managed in a private diary. BiM Active recently won the grand prize award in the NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge, a location-based services application development contest held in conjunction with the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association.

MotionBased Technologies

Located in Sausalito, California, MotionBased Technologies has created a Web site dedicated to helping endurance athletes and others train better. The Web site is an alternative source for anyone wanting to track time, distance, and speed in their outdoor activities. MotionBased uses traditional GPS receivers to record workouts. Once GPS data is collected, it can be uploaded to the MotionBased Web site where a software agent walks the user through a few screens explaining the process. The user's activity data is then sent to an in-box for viewing immediately or saved for use at a later date.

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MotionBased users chart and map their GPS activities on the Web.

MotionBased users chart and map their GPS activities on the Web.

The data is segmented into unique activities, including time, distance, speed, and elevation. The MotionBased.com Map Player uses ArcWeb Services to display the route of the activity on a variety of map backgrounds, including an elevation profile for a 3D perspective of the route. Map Player can simulate the activity along the map and elevation profile with a moving dot indicator. The user can interact by zooming in and out, panning, and displaying rollovers on key sections of the illustration. For those looking for an extra push in their workout, MotionBased offers dot racing; users can race multiple instances of the same route to see improvements or race against other members of MotionBased. Depending on the nature of the activity, users can view their routes on different map backgrounds. Runners and cyclists may be interested in street maps, while hikers and mountain bikers may find topographic maps more useful. The MotionBased site allows users to choose from aerial photos and street, topographic, and elevation maps. When traveling abroad, users have the choice of map data for Europe, Canada, Mexico, or New Zealand. Their submitted activities are automatically included in the MotionBased TrailNetwork, a fast-growing database
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of trails, routes, and activity information being created by members of the MotionBased community. MotionBased.com won Popular Science magazine's "2004 Best of What's New for Recreation" award.

Trimble Outdoors

Trimble Outdoors has created a location-based blogging application for people who enjoy outdoor adventures. By combining GPS technology with the ability to view maps and location-stamped photos on a mobile phone and on the Web, adventurers have everything they need to capture their next trek and share it with others. Again, when a picture is taken using a GPS-enhanced mobile picture phone, it is automatically given a location and time stamp. Using Trimble Outdoors' Web site (www.trimbleoutdoors.com), members can post their photos and diaries and download other members' trips. Becoming a member of this online community requires a subscription. The fee is included in the Trimble Adventure Planner software license fee or the Trimble Outdoors Gold and Platinum monthly fee. Subscribers can view trip information by logging on to the Trimble Outdoors Web site and searching on a location in the United States. By selecting a particular trip, they can connect to an ArcWeb Service that displays an aerial photograph or topographic or street map of the requested area, along with registered waypoints, photographs, and a trip log. Viewers can pan around the map, zoom in, choose pictures to view, and send an e-mail to friends and family containing the trip information. More than 1,00 trips are currently logged on the Web site. (Reprinted from the Summer 200 issue of ArcNews magazine)

Trimble Outdoors users take location-stamped photos with their camera phones.

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Copyright 2007 ESRI All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. The information contained in this document is the exclusive property of ESRI. This work is protected under United States copyright law and other international copyright treaties and conventions. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as expressly permitted in writing by ESRI. All requests should be sent to Attention: Contracts and Legal Services Manager, ESRI, 380 New York Street, Redlands, CA 92373-8100, USA. The information contained in this document is subject to change without notice. U.S. GOVERNMENT RESTRICTED/LIMITED RIGHTS Any software, documentation, and/or data delivered hereunder is subject to the terms of the License Agreement. In no event shall the U.S. Government acquire greater than RESTRICTED/LIMITED RIGHTS. At a minimum, use, duplication, or disclosure by the U.S. Government is subject to restrictions as set forth in FAR 52.227-14 Alternates I, II, and III (JUN 1987); FAR 52.227-19 (JUN 1987) and/or FAR 12.211/12.212 (Commercial Technical Data/Computer Software); and DFARS 252.227-7015 (NOV 1995) (Technical Data) and/or DFARS 227.7202 (Computer Software), as applicable. Contractor/Manufacturer is ESRI, 380 New York Street, Redlands, CA 92373-8100, USA. @esri.com, 3D Analyst, ACORN, ADF, AML, ArcAtlas, ArcCAD, ArcCatalog, ArcCOGO, ArcData, ArcDoc, ArcEdit, ArcEditor, ArcEurope, ArcExplorer, ArcExpress, ArcGIS, ArcGlobe, ArcGrid, ArcIMS, ARC/INFO, ArcInfo, ArcInfo Librarian, ArcInfoProfessional GIS, ArcInfoThe Worlds GIS, ArcLocation, ArcLogistics, ArcMap, ArcNetwork, ArcNews, ArcObjects, ArcOpen, ArcPad, ArcPlot, ArcPress, ArcQuest, ArcReader, ArcScan, ArcScene, ArcSchool, ArcSDE, ArcSdl, ArcSketch, ArcStorm, ArcSurvey, ArcTIN, ArcToolbox, ArcTools, ArcUSA, ArcUser, ArcView, ArcVoyager, ArcWatch, ArcWeb, ArcWorld, ArcXML, Atlas GIS, AtlasWare, Avenue, Business Analyst Online, BusinessMAP, Community, CommunityInfo, Data Automation Kit, Database Integrator, DBI Kit, EDN, ESRI, ESRITeam GIS, ESRIThe GIS Company, ESRIThe GIS People, ESRIThe GIS Software Leader, FormEdit, Geographic Design System, ESRI BIS, Geography Matters, Geography Network, GIS by ESRI, GIS Day, GIS for Everyone, GISData Server, JTX, MapBeans, MapCaf, MapData, MapObjects, Maplex, MapStudio, ModelBuilder, MOLE, NetEngine, PC ARC/INFO, PC ARCPLOT, PC ARCSHELL, PC DATA CONVERSION, PC STARTER KIT, PC TABLES, PC ARCEDIT, PC NETWORK, PC OVERLAY, PLTS, Rent-a-Tech, RouteMAP, SDE, SiteReporter, SML, SourcebookAmerica, Spatial Database Engine, StreetEditor, StreetMap, Tapestry, the ARC/INFO logo, the ArcAtlas logo, the ArcCAD logo, the ArcCAD WorkBench logo, the ArcCOGO logo, the ArcData logo, the ArcData Online logo, the ArcEdit logo, the ArcEurope logo, the ArcExplorer logo, the ArcExpress logo, the ArcGIS logo, the ArcGIS Explorer logo, the ArcGrid logo, the ArcIMS logo, the ArcInfo logo, the ArcLogistics Route logo, the ArcNetwork logo, the ArcPad logo, the ArcPlot logo, the ArcPress for ArcView logo, the ArcPress logo, the ArcScan logo, the ArcScene logo, the ArcSDE CAD Client logo, the ArcSDE logo, the ArcStorm logo, the ArcTIN logo, the ArcTools logo, the ArcUSA logo, the ArcView 3D Analyst logo, the ArcView Business Analyst logo, the ArcView Data Publisher logo, the ArcView GIS logo, the ArcView Image Analysis logo, the ArcView Internet Map Server logo, the ArcView logo, the ArcView Network Analyst logo, the ArcView Spatial Analyst logo, the ArcView StreetMap 2000 logo, the ArcView StreetMap logo, the ArcView Tracking Analyst logo, the ArcWorld logo, the Atlas GIS logo, the Avenue logo, the BusinessMAP logo, the Community logo, the Data Automation Kit logo, the Digital Chart of the World logo, the ESRI Data logo, the ESRI globe logo, the ESRI Press logo, the Geography Network logo, the MapCaf logo, the MapObjects Internet Map Server logo, the MapObjects logo, the MOLE logo, the NetEngine logo, the PC ARC/INFO logo, the Production Line Tool Set logo, the RouteMAP IMS logo, the RouteMAP logo, the SDE logo, The Worlds Leading Desktop GIS, Water Writes, www.esri.com, www. esribis.com, www.geographynetwork.com, www.gis.com, www.gisday.com, and Your Personal Geographic Information System are trademarks, registered trademarks, or service marks of ESRI in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products mentioned in the ESRI Web site may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective trademark owners.

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