The Village of Glenview approached GIS to collect the locations of outfalls throughout the Village for the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program. NPDES controls water pollution by regulating sources that discharge pollutants.
The Village decided to use a new method of collection, called Open Data Kit (ODK), using cellular phones. ODK allows the use of GPS on cellular phones along with the creation of forms to collect attribute data. Collected during the process were the GPS locations, photos of each outfall, and a unique ID of each. This data was then transferred off the phone to a staging location on the internet that allows exporting of the data to be used in GIS. GIS then used this data to create a series of maps to show the locations of the outfalls.
The Village found this process to be very cost effective while maintaining the accuracy that they were seeking.
From the onset of the GIS program, the Village board had wanted to see measurable results that the GIS program was being used by staff. The village board did not want to spend thousands of tax payer dollars for a program that would neither benefit the staff of the village or its citizens. Six months (6) into the GIS program the board will begin receiving a series of monthly reports measuring metrics of the GIS program. The metrics included in the monthly report are; Site Project Focus, this will show what projects and what departments the specialist is spending the most time, MapOffice™ reporting for the last month, this will show MapOffice™ use by staff and by the public alongside cost savings for the most used tools and utilization in the last 12 months, and MapOffice™ use by month alongside a departmental breakdown of MapOffice™ use for the past month. These reports will help the Board, Staff and the GIS specialist stay informed and empowers them to make better decisions concerning the GIS program.
Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators (JULIE) is a not-for-profit corporation that provides homeowners and professional excavators with one place to call for safe digging. JULIE serves as a message handling notification service for underground facility owners, taking information about planned excavations and distributing this information to its membership. It is then the responsibility of each facility owner to mark the location of their underground facilities at the excavation site. In Norridge, this means that every time JULIE receives a call, the Public Works department has to go out and do all the locating. JULIE bases the calls (and the facility owner) off of a series of boundaries that are based off of Township Quarter sections. If an underground facility is just barely within a quarter section boundary, the facility owner receives a phone call every time utilities need to be located within that quarter section, even if the location is not near the owned facilities. JULIE allows communities and other facility owners to submit their own boundaries to reduce the amount of calls each facility owner receives.
To create a new JULIE boundary, the GIS department took all the village utility data and created a 300 FT buffer around the utility dataset and the village boundary. This made sure that all the utility information within the village boundaries was included, and allowed for any unaccounted utility information just outside the village limits. The new boundary was then approved by both the Engineering and Public Works Departments, and then uploaded onto the JULIE website. It was then approved by JULIE and implemented into their call system. Now, whenever the Public Works department gets a call to locate utilities, they know that the location will be within or very close to their jurisdiction.
Despite having state-of-the-art GIS technology at its fingertips, the Village of Glencoe still faces situations where access to electronic data is limited. One example of this is when emergency response personnel are involved in water rescues at Skokie Lagoons or the shores of Lake Michigan. When officers are using Public Safety watercraft, they do not have access to the same mapping technology that is available in the squad cars and other emergency vehicles. Fortunately, GIS is still able to provide support through print media, which can be stored on board for quick reference in an emergency.
One product recently added to the Public Safety watercraft cache is a map that highlights areas that are not traversable by watercraft. This map combines recent aerial photography with overlays to point out hazards such as spillways and shoals that are not immediately visible at ground level. This map will also be useful to incident command, should a significant rescue operation need to be planned in a waterway.
We are pleased to announce that the Village of Mundelein has become the 19th member of the GIS Consortium. With their membership the GIS Consortium has grown to over half a million in population covering over one-hundred and fifty square miles. As the Consortium continues to grow the buying power and efficiency of our membership increases as the costs of staffing, hardware and software are further distributed. We would like to welcome Mundelein and look forward to an exciting and collaborative partnership.
Removal of Ash trees has begun in Elk Grove Village, IL to combat Emerald Ash Borer infestation. An inventory of Ash trees in The Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) has been instrumental in planning removal efforts and is now being used to assist planting of new trees. Mapping the new tree plantings has made it possible to communicate watering and observation duties to be sure staff is doing what they can to ensure the survival of the new trees. Tracking removal locations where a replacement tree is desired in coming years will be much easier to manage using the GIS as well since the history of tree removal locations will always be available and the expectation that tree removals will exceed plantings for some time due to the Ash Borer threat and budgeting requirements.
The Village of Oak Brook is known throughout the Chicagoland area for its many shopping centers and restaurants, the majority of which are located in a close proximity on 22nd St. As a result of these popular shopping and dining options there is a significant increase in daytime population, which unfortunately leads to more crimes and accidents in the shopping centers. The largest and most populous of these shopping centers is Oakbrook Center, a shopping mall located at the busy intersection of IL Rt. 83 and 22nd St. Oakbrook Center has a lot of shops and restaurants located throughout its grounds, as well as 5 large parking lots and 5 parking garages. The majority of incidents that the police respond to at Oakbrook Center are located in these parking areas, which are difficult to locate given that there are no specific addresses for the parking areas. As a result the police have to rely on parking lot colors, and the associated ID for each row.
The police department had traditionally relied on an old hand drawn map displaying the different parking lots, and the associated row ID. This map is now quite out dated and difficult to read. Additionally, the Police Department had to provide its new dispatch center with an accurate map that depicts which areas in the mall they will be responding too, and how the incident will be referred to in their reports. By providing the GIS staff with an old version of the map and having Community Service Officers do field checks, we were able to successfully update the mall layout. This provides a vital piece of information to all officers, dispatchers, and administration so that they know precisely which location to respond to, as well as giving the Police Department an opportunity to analyze and mitigate location based police incidents. Without using GIS, the Police Department would have to spend a significant amount of time updating the map by hand, without the opportunity to share the spatial data with its associated organizations.
The City of Highland Park uses the New Application to dispatch Fire and Police units to reported incidents. From the addresses used to accurately respond to incidents to the background layers used in the map, New World relies heavily on GIS information. Without accurate GIS information supplied by the City, the New World application would have difficulty creating accurate responses. One of the most crucial factors in accurate responses are good addresses. This is supplied by the GIS systems as address points and a street centerline. These are regularly reviewed and updated by the GIS Office and other City Employees.
The New World application requires data to be in a specific format with specific fields. The GIS Office wrote a script that efficiently converts the GIS data to required format. The GIS Office also provides support during data by assisting the Police Department with loading the GIS data into New World. Their primary role during this process is resolving data related issues.
Without a robust GIS, the City would have o pay for GIS data provided by a vendor. This data would not be as accurate as data maintained by the City. Also, the City would not have the direct support they currently have during the data updates. Maintaining an accurate and complete GIS ensure that New World is using the best data possible and that it is returning accurate responses. The residents of Highland Park can be assured that their dispatch services will respond efficiently, should they ever need them.
Removal of Ash trees has begun in Elk Grove Village, IL to combat Emerald Ash Borer infestation. An inventory of Ash trees in The Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) has been instrumental in planning removal efforts and is now being used to assist planting of new trees. Mapping the new tree plantings has made it possible to communicate watering and observation duties to be sure staff is doing what they can to ensure the survival of the new trees. Tracking removal locations where a replacement tree is desired in coming years will be much easier to manage using the GIS as well since the history of tree removal locations will always be available and the expectation that tree removals will exceed plantings for some time due to the Ash Borer threat and budgeting requirements.
The City of Highland Park Community Development Planning Division is considering the development of a driving tour of John Van Bergen designed structures. The John Van Bergen was important Chicago architect who at one time worked for Frank Lloyd Wright. The Highland Park locations were listed in an Excel worksheet that needed to be located on a map.
The GIS Office used the Excel worksheet to create a map showing the location of the Jon Van Bergen buildings. This map will be used by City employees to create a driving route that efficiently visits most Jon Van Bergen buildings locations. This route with recommended stops will be plotted out on a second map.
By using GIS the Planning Division was able to quickly and efficiently get a map of the John Van Bergen designed buildings. This map will then be used to create a driving tour of these sites. Thus they will be able to showcase an important piece of the history of development in Highland Park. Without GIS the Planners would have had to field check to each location and draw each building on a paper copy of the map.
Technology can be used to assist local government in many different ways. For the Village of Winnetka, IL, their investment in technology includes a Geographic Information System (GIS) program that provides all village departments with maps, analysis results, and data that assists with day to day operations and future planning efforts. Traditionally, access to the village’s GIS data, and the ability to analyze it, has been limited to those who are trained on how to use a high end GIS software program, which can both cost prohibitive and technically challenging to implement as a tool for all village staff. However, with the development of a web-browser based GIS viewer application called MapOffice™, all staff now has the ability to view all GIS data collected by the village, as well as conduct basic analysis of certain data to gather more in-depth information about a particular assets or process.
A recent analysis of village assets conducted using MapOffice™ involved the village’s Public Works department, which used the application to conduct a sewer system flow analysis live during a meeting with a firm that is conducting a sewer system flow monitoring study for the village. During the meeting, the Public Works Director was able to use MapOffice™ to highlight areas that the village wanted to include as part of the flow monitoring study and, using a sewer system tracing tool, trace how each area was connected within the entire system and where the flow for each study area started and ended. By conducting this analysis during the meeting, using existing village data and an existing tool available to all village staff, the Public Works Director was able to clearly display which areas he wanted the firm to focus on for the study and saved the village time and money by not having the firm conduct the same flow analysis prior to starting the flow monitoring study.
By making GIS more available through a commonly used medium (i.e. a web browser), the ability to access and analyze village assets is now possible to all village staff. Increased access to this information now allows all departments to leverage the village GIS data to make more informed decisions that are saving time and reducing the need for extra expenditures to produce the same level of results.
The Village of Lincolnshire recently unveiled its newly redesigned website with improved organization of information. New features include a bolder color scheme, a citizen support center, and a revamped Village Maps page. One of the key improvements to the maps page was the addition of “My Lincolnshire Property Search,” an easy-to-use property search tool that improves accessibility to MapOffice™ Public. Rather than going directly to the MapOffice™ interface, residents can simply type their address into a text search box. The search function opens a new window that zooms to the property and provides a summary of relevant information to that location. My Lincolnshire Property Search takes away the “intimidation factor” for novice computer users by bypassing the map interface and offering an easy-to-understand interface as an alternative.
In the future, Lincolnshire envisions using the Village Maps page as a central location for a variety of maps that are designed for use by the public. Additions will include maps of recreational trails, school district boundaries, and more.
In the Spring of 2012, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) contacted the Village of Skokie to participate in a graduate level course allowing Planning and Geographic Information Systems (GIS)students to get hands on experience working for a local government. After a few phone calls and meetings to discuss possible projects, the UIC class was tasked with collecting the locations of parking meters and street lights in the downtown area and providing a recommendation as to where pay stations could be located if the Village were to do away with single meters. After the 5 week course where the students acted as a consultant, the Village received the data, maps and analysis outlining the students work.