With the winter coming to a close shortly, the excessive season of main breaks is almost over. Water main breaks take away from resources and time that could be put into improvement projects. The easiest way to calculate the number of main breaks on a village street or water main line is to simply count each break and add it up; however, this data collection method only will give you the number of main breaks, it doesn’t account for the significance of those breaks to the integrity of the line as a whole.
This new method used in the analysis uses Geographic Information Systems to normalize the number of water main breaks on each segment by taking the number of breaks on a line and comparing that with how short that line is. As you can see in the map, the higher number of main breaks on a segment has a darker shade of blue. If two different water main lines have the same number of breaks in a given year, the water main line that is shorter will have a higher normalization of breaks. Based on this information, the shorter water mains are prone to higher normalization scores. Finding the water mains that have multiple breaks over short distances, will help Public Works and Engineering identify the water mains that need improvement the most. This analysis will save funds, by highlighting to Public Works the main problem areas of the Village’s Water Main Network.
In an effort to continuously investigate real world representations in map products, the Geographic Information System (GIS) staff in Elk Grove Village, IL has identified a few data processing operations that provide more context than your typical map.
When light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data was collected to produce an elevation dataset, point data with elevation classifications remained. Staff quickly realized that this unintended, yet useful, information could be processed further to give a representation of the tree canopy throughout the community. Building level information was utilized to simulate the stories in each building by duplicating the foundation at an offset location. Combining these two representations generated a resource similar to a landscape plan with much more cartographic appeal than your typical GIS map, at no additional software cost, and that could be consumed with existing applications. The amount of detail obtained provides for creation of ever improving map products that appeal and better communicate information to all who use them.
Having the largest business park in the nation provides Elk Grove Village, IL many benefits as a community and initiating improvements to make it even more desirable to current and future business owners is an ongoing objective of Village staff. In 2011 the Village began planning for a major drainage system improvement program. In many ways they have utilized their geographic information system (GIS) to support those efforts.
With GIS the Engineering and Public Works staff was able to identify the location of existing storm sewer infrastructure and open ditch locations, generate statistics and measurements, trace the flow of runoff from any point along the system, map the connectivity and extent of each drainage basin, and produce maps for the business park as a whole and each basin within that area of town to its exit point. Using the GIS gave staff the tools to thoroughly understand the existing conditions and plan a program budget to prepare future improvements and to maintain the existing system.
As the Elk Grove Village Geographic Information System (GIS) was developing their address data it was necessary to gather information from various resources from inside and outside The Village. Many departments had resources with resident and business contact information which result from various existing billing, permit, and inspection procedures such as utility billing, fire inspections, and business licenses. It became apparent that combined together these resources could be extremely useful for village staff and they could be consolidated knowing all records were organized by address information.
After meeting with data administrators in each department, GIS staff charted what information is collected and when. The GIS and IT staff then collaborated to make information from all of the in-house datasets available to staff via their interactive mapping program. This tool now consists of almost a dozen sources that are often updated independently ensuring currency of the information and is used extensively by staff because it has given them the ability to lookup and verify contacts in ways that are extremely rapid compared to those available to them before.
Redevelopment, annexations, new construction, and even remodeling often changes the distribution of services and consequently introduces a record management workflow that needs to be coordinated between utility service providers and municipalities. Periodically villages are contacted to verify service addresses for electric and natural gas utility companies. Most recently Riverside, IL administrative staff was tasked by Nicor to review their gas service address list to verify all provided addresses are in The Village and identify addresses that Nicor may have been missing. This information is integral for the tax reimbursement processes related to the Village’s utility tax ordinance.
Riverside’s Geographic Information System (GIS) provided efficiencies in fulfilling this request because a fundamental dataset in the GIS is the address information for the entire community. There are tools within the GIS that make comparing the provided list against known addresses a relatively quick process. Those tools were used to highlight not only service location errors but also missing ones.
Without GIS the staff would have had to use a resource such as their utility billing database to manually compare service locations. Doing so would have been much more time consuming than the information system approach used.
Communities everywhere are tasked with providing water samples to the EPA to meet public health compliance standards. There are various elements the water is tested for and some are tested for more frequently than others. The Riverside, IL Water Department has utilized its Geographic Information System (GIS) to highlight the distribution of the sample sites throughout the community with the water system shown in the background. Alternative locations for each site are mapped as well to be used for additional samples or as a substitute when needed. The samples provided are tested by the EPA and reports are distributed to the public every year.
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.
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.
For years Elk Grove Village has been maintaining a database to track roadway pavement history and ratings. With their Geographic Information System (GIS) they have been able to integrate the database information into a geographic representation on their roadways which allows for maps to be generated showing the results of a query for specific surface material, base material, maintenance frequency, etc. Using the flexibility of their interactive mapping program the GIS staff has made the pavement history available to all staff. Simply clicking on any road segment will list the years in which maintenance was performed and specifics about each maintenance activity saving staff time to gather the desired information.
Riverside, IL has earned the moniker “Village in the Forest” thanks to its planned design along the Des Plaines River with curvilinear streets, expansive parkways, and forested areas. The beautiful landscape that is Riverside does require maintenance, specifically tree trimming, in order to maintain tree integrity, appearance, and maximize safety. The Village’s Forestry personnel are using their Geographic Information System (GIS) to manage their tree inventory and plan trimming efforts. Tracking annual maintenance and their corresponding priority areas gives staff precise records of past activities. Mapping future efforts in the GIS allows staff to modify their plans if funding varies and continue to manage the areas in most need. Maps are generated and distributed when the time comes for the maintenance service company to do the work as well. This gives Village staff confidence there will be no misunderstandings of what trimming is expected and where.
Like any community, Elk Grove Village, IL has its share of apartment, condominium, townhouse, and assisted living complexes. At times village inspectors may identify property maintenance issues at such locations which need to be addressed. The Village has mapped these association areas and their related contact information in its Geographic Information System (GIS) providing a quick resource for staff when dealing with issues that pertain to common areas. In many cases the association contact information is available in a community’s water billing database or something similar, but most staff do not have access to those records so the GIS map has been quite useful for all staff to easily obtain the association contact and phone number allowing them to resolve the issues at hand quickly.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was utilized while reviewing the On Street Solicitation section of The Village Code of the Village of Elk Grove Village to determine which lighted intersections throughout the community permitted on street solicitation. Based on the current specifications of The Code it was determined that there is only one intersection where this is permitted. Having a map highlighting not only the permissible solicitation location, but also other factors that affect the permissible locations such as zoning and lighted intersections gives Administrative staff a clear picture of the situation at hand and a resource for Police staff to enforce the regulation. GIS is a tool for them to consider all of the factors pertaining to on street solicitation and decide if revisions need to be made to their policy.
Being that Riverside, IL is located in the Chicago Metropolitan area there are many modes of transit available to the general population in addition to the traditional ones such as bike and bus routes. The Geographic Information System (GIS) staff has consolidated transit information to assist transportation planning efforts in The Village. The data is available to village staff in their interactive mapping application giving them a quick resource to review the transportation network that is available to residents and visitors including website links to the schedules and other supporting documents that the regional transit organizations have made available on the internet including train and bus schedules. A quick look at this information shows how connected or disconnected the various transit options are and may suggest initiatives to promote use of those facilities and their accessibility to businesses or even realize ways to close gaps between the transit stops.
Now that Elk Grove Village, IL has a Geographic Information System (GIS) they can quickly perform a verification of potential sex offender residences. Every so often the Police Department will receive a request for residency by a registered sex offender and the staff is required to determine if the property meets the sex offender residence restrictions of the State of Illinois. Sex offenders are restricted from living five hundred feet from schools, parks, and day cares for example. The location between the inquired property and distances from these facilities can be analyzed quite easily because of the analysis capabilities within the geographic nature of the GIS and the fact that property information is the base of the system. Maps can be produced as well when residency is approved or denied as supporting documentation of the evaluation that was performed.
To continue efforts to understand and help manage flooding in The Village of Riverside the history of permits for flood mitigation devices for residential properties were extracted from The Village’s permitting system. Using the Geographic Information System (GIS) the locations of the private property mitigation permits were mapped. Combining this information with other flood related data such as backyard ponding reports, improved surfaces, contours, and sewer infrastructure that The Village has been accumulating and mapping gives a more detailed picture of all factors involved in the ongoing flood mitigation efforts and provides for more effective solutions.
To continue efforts to understand and help manage flooding in The Village of Riverside the history of permits for flood mitigation devices for residential properties were extracted from The Village’s permitting system. Using the Geographic Information System (GIS) the locations of the private property mitigation permits were mapped. Combining this information with other flood related data such as backyard ponding reports, improved surfaces, contours, and sewer infrastructure that The Village has been accumulating and mapping gives a more detailed picture of all factors involved in the ongoing flood mitigation efforts and provides for more effective solutions.
The Village of Riverside has been coordinating with the Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) and Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) since the summer of 2010 to plan removal of the Hofmann and Fairbank Dams along the Des Plaines River in Riverside. The Village has utilized its Geographic Information System (GIS) to create maps that express their desired alignment of access roads and seeding paths to minimize the impact of construction activities on the landscape and existing infrastructure. Using GIS, The Village’s tree inventory and other important data could be shared with the ACE and IDNR to ease design efforts for regarding of Swan Pond Park, also located along the Des Plaines River in Riverside.
It was recently realized by the Elk Grove Village, IL GIS staff that most, if not all, of the land division information related to properties was being provided them by their data sharing agreement with Cook County. The data represents all of the components a piece of land is described by in a legal description and includes the Township, Range, Section, Quarter Section, Subdivision, Block, Parcel, and Lot. All of this information was combined in The Village’s interactive GIS map so that staff can have quick access to this information when faced with future land divisions and/or inquiries without an address to identify the location.
The Village of Riverside often performs landscape burns along the Des Plaines River which winds along and through its incorporated area. The Village Forester is required by law to obtain an open burn permit to perform such activities and recently took advantage of their Geographic Information System (GIS) to create a map product to accompany the permit application. Seeing that the burning locations vary from year to year, but are always in and along the same forested areas, the image highlighted all areas that could potentially be burned. Identifying in the map all of the sensitive facilities such as schools, senior care facilities, medical facilities, and even a nearby airport gives a clear picture of any potential proximity issues that may need to be considered as well. Reusing the map product will allow staff to quickly complete the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency permit process each year.
Elk Grove Village Public Works has inventoried their crosswalk locations using their Geographic Information System (GIS) to assist maintenance and tracking of the walks. Knowing all locations has benefited the department because the data provides support information for map products, road reconstruction projects, pedestrian safety studies, and maybe most importantly maintenance. There are now quite a few different types of crosswalks in The Village including striped, brick, and painted concrete. Through the GIS, staff can assess when these walkways were last maintained and schedule upkeep based on a combination of the type of walk, proximity to schools, and the maintenance frequency specific to that type of surface. Also by referencing the GIS they can be certain none of the locations are missed if an assessment needs to be made of the status of the walks.
The Riverside Fire Department has been working with its Geographic Information System (GIS) staff to produce updated fire hydrant flow maps due considerably to a significant water system improvement project conducted in 2010. The new configuration of infrastructure was updated in the GIS along with the new flow information for the fire hydrants that resulted from new and larger water mains. A large wall map was produced for the fire station and smaller, double sided maps were printed and laminated for use in the field. With the capabilities of the GIS and the fact that it is a repository for all village data the maps were designed to include all addresses throughout the village as well. Combining the address and hydrant locations with flow information provides a very valuable resource for the Fire staff.
In 2011 the Elk Grove Village GIS (Geographic Information System) and Clerk’s Office staff began a project to inventory variances for each property that have been approved throughout the village. A variance is an approved deviation from the municipal land use or building codes.
Existing variances were pooled from spreadsheets maintained by the Clerk’s Office and a document management system. The information was made available to village staff in an interactive map and the variances were split for display purposes between those that applied to land use and those that applied to the building code. Consequently some easement information had to be modified where easement variances existed as well.
Having this information organized in a way that staff can quickly determine if any exceptions have been allowed for a property has been well received and quite useful for staff.
The Riverside Farmers Market is a weekly service The Village of Riverside, IL organizes for its residents. Held every Wednesday from 2:30 – 7:00 PM during the summer and fall in 2011, The Market has had many vendors and community groups participate throughout the season. The Village has tasked its Geographic Information System (GIS) to create event maps to communicate to the vendors and groups their setup locations. With growing interest and turnout the setup locations have often changed from week to week making the event map that much more useful in staging the event.
To provide a reference for village staff and contractors alike, the Riverside Geographic Information System (GIS) has provided maps of tree planting locations. By mapping this information staff can evaluate the work conducted by the contractor and inspect the condition of the trees going forward. Similarly tree removal products have been generated to identify where stump removal and restoration activities have taken place. This information can easily be integrated into the tree inventory that is also managed using the GIS to obtain accurate assessments of village owned and managed trees.
In 2009 Elk Grove Village Police Department began an evaluation of police beats and staffing by mapping and calculating statistics of calls for service using it’s Geographic Information System (GIS). To continue the assessment in 2010 the GIS was used to map all roadways in town and produce an estimated time for a unit to patrol each police beat. The single lane mileage together with speed limit along each roadway was enough information to calculate the patrol times. Combining the 2009 and 2010 evaluations the Police Department has a much clearer picture of the demands for each beat and the amount of staffing that is needed to meet various levels of service for the residents.
To promote public safety and awareness in the community the Village of Riverside, IL Police Department is making available a sex offender map on the web. Because it is a densely populated area the information is gathered not only for Riverside, but surrounding communities as well. The State’s Sex Offender Registry provides the offender locations and those addresses are plotted using The Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS). By law sex offenders are not allowed to reside within five hundred feet of a public school or park. The GIS is capable of producing these exclusion areas with ease making the final map product a combination of the sex offender residences and the exclusion areas.
A growing desire for access to information and computer programs while performing tasks out in the field has Elk Grove Village planning to implement a wireless network. Inspectors, police, and fire staff would immediately benefit from such a resource to access systems that are constantly changing while they are out of the office or could be updated more quickly from what they are experiencing and working on in the field. The Geographic Information System (GIS) has been providing maps to highlight existing village facilities where network equipment can reside and the extent of the community that would be covered if access points were installed at various locations. The most efficient locations will be realized from these maps for the desired wireless coverage that is determined.
Besides the flood issues introduced because of the proximity to the Des Plaines River through and along the Village of Riverside’s Western and Southern boundaries, some reoccurring residential drainage issues have been identified. The Village has contracted to have drainage studies performed in these areas hoping to realize some solutions through infrastructure and/or grading changes. Through existing data sharing agreements with Cook County via its Geographic Information Systems (GIS) program, Riverside was able to provide contour and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) elevation data to the engineering consultant. Using the GIS to prepare the elevation data for the areas of issue allowed the studies to advance quickly as compared to the alternative of field data collection.
Elk Grove Village Public Works recently initiated an inventory project for village owned trees, generally being all trees located within medians and parkways. Using their GPS equipment and seasonal labor the trees are located and their condition, size, and other useful information related to management of the trees are documented. The village GIS (Geographic Information System) is being used to process the GPS data, track the data collection progress, and evaluate the amount and location of trees in poor condition. The initial goal is to replace ash trees in poor condition with other, healthy trees of another species. Having an inventory of the ash trees will allow for rapid and effective management of Emerald Ash Borer (EAB), an invasive species, if discovered in the village. Other objectives that will derive from this information are removing stumps, replacing trees in poor condition, placement of new plantings, and realizing areas that may require more frequent trimming due to the proximity of power lines.
The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) develops accounting standards for state and local government agencies. The financial reports that are generated are used by the public, including issuers and auditors to assess the financial status of the reporting agencies. One aspect of the accounting process is the value of assets owned by the entity. Because the Village of Riverside, IL has a Geographic Information System (GIS), calculating village owned assets such as utilities and easements can be performed regularly and quickly. Just recently the village utilized its GIS to estimate the village owned easements relative to supporting utility data. Because easement information is filed away as hard copy documents the alternative would have required much research and significantly more staff time.
A recent addition to the Elk Grove Village, IL interactive mapping application, MapOffice™, is the Business Intelligence mapping service. Business Intelligence is a tool that is configured with community databases such as permits, work orders, and police incidents giving the map user the ability to dynamically map records in those databases usually by a category and/or date range.
Currently the MapOffice™ - Business Intelligence in Elk Grove is configured with their street light work orders, animal license, and business license data. Using this tool Public Works employees can quickly display the street lights that have had an issue in the past week, month, or custom timeframe. Similarly Police staff can plot all of the day care businesses when dealing with sex offender relocations.
Additional resources are being planned to configure with Business Intelligence including traffic incidents and water main breaks. The power of this tool is the ease of information access it provides to village staff whose decision making processes benefit greatly from supporting information from sources throughout the village, often housed in other departments.
An annual water system maintenance procedure for Elk Grove Village Public Works staff is to service any fire hydrants that do not self-drain. A fire hydrant that has been used at any time during the year, if working properly, will drain the water automatically as designed so the water will not freeze inside the hydrant making it unusable. During the cold winter months when temperatures are below freezing village staff will drain or pump fire hydrants that did not drain properly.
Because the maintenance records identified which hydrants had to be serviced Public Works staff was able to plot the locations of the troublesome hydrants using available GIS (Geographic Information System) resources. Displaying that information on a map gives an overview of the maintenance performed and allows for additional statistics, tracking, and replacement planning over time to be sure these hydrants do not disrupt fire response services.
One of the unique features of Riversidelinois is the design of the community centered around forestry as envisioned by Frederick Law Olmsted. Riverside is one of the first planned communities and has been a National Historic Landmark since 1970 due to the historic architecture, winding streets, gas street lights, and vegetated landscape.
The Village’s Forester, Landscape Advisory Committee, and other village staff have teamed up to initiate a landscape maintenance program that allows residents an opportunity to exercise their pride in the community by caring for green spaces in the village parks, parkways, and landscape beds. The location, size, and availability of identified areas is being tracked in the Village’s GIS (Geographic Information System). A map and spreadsheet of the adopted areas is constantly updated to reflect the program status. Also a history of forest workdays is tracked over time such as a weekend Boy Scout event to clear Buckthorn, an invasive species. Combining all of these activities gives village staff an excellent understanding of the maintenance status of each area enabling them to sustain the beautiful landscape for generations to come.
Riversidelinois has the benefit of being centered on a commuter train stop that serves areas west of the city of Chicago. Accompanied by dense development in the city center, a high demand for parking facilities is present. The village has chosen to utilize it’s Geographic Information Stystem (GIS) to inventory and evaluate its parking scenario.
The location of the parking lots have been created in the GIS as well as the parking spaces within those lots. From that information a simple parking lot map was producted showing where all of the lots are. Statistics can then be generated, taking things a step further, by tallying the quantity of spaces in each lot and within all lots combined. The next piece to the parking evaluation will be to integrate permit types, parking restrictions, and fees to this model to obtain a thourough assessment for spaces not only at the lots, but for on-street metered spaces as well. And this will be covered in a bulletin at a later date.
A recent objective in Elk Grove Village has been to map easement information. Easements are a land management resource for many departments as they depict areas where utilities may exist, areas that have been dedicated for future infrastructure and where municipal vehicles have access on private property.
Easements can also be granted for infrastructure improvements for example or property owners may petition for a variance to an existing easement on their property. An example of this would be a variance to build a shed that would encroach, or overlap, a few feet into an easement. Variances have become another mapping objective because of these circumstances and will be covered in a later article.
The Village GIS (Geographic Information System) makes available an interactive mapping program called MapOffice™. This provides the perfect interface for village staff to visualize where these easements exist, how large they are, and how they already are or could be used. The tracking of easements and the Village owned infrastructure (assets) is an important component to Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB).
Usually unseasonably warm temperatures are welcome during the winter months in the Chicago area. But a forecast including above freezing temperatures was met with some concern due to the historical snowfall event that took place just two weeks prior. Riverside Public Works personnel were aware of the potential for roadway flooding if rain and excessive snowmelt was in store. In preparation for this possible situation the Village’s GIS was leveraged to provide maps so that sewer inlets could be located and cleared off. Without GIS these inlets would be time consuming to locate given they were still covered by snow from plowing efforts.
The warmer temperatures did arrive but without rain, so the snow had time to melt. Staff was prepared to mitigate the runoff issues, but this time, thankfully, their plan did not have to be put into action.
With the recent historical snowfall event, 22” over a 16 hour timeframe, it became a safety issue for Elk Grove Village Firefighters to know the location of their fire hydrants and have access to them. Many fire hydrants had been completely covered by snow because of the amount of snow and plowing efforts from the village, counties, and state.
To assist their fire response the GIS (Geographic Information System) Department provided each fire station a hard and soft copy map showing the location of the hydrants in their district. As time allowed, fire personnel then focused on uncovering and clearing snow away from fire hydrants located at the corners of each block where they were most likely to have been completely covered by snow pushed off of the roadways.
In order to determine the effectiveness of their current snow removal strategy Riverside Public Works mapped their snow removal routes. Doing so provided a map of the priority streets, parking lots, and sidewalks as well as lengths of roadway included in each route.
An evaluation of the roadway lengths provided staff a better idea of the distribution of efforts. They realized there was not an even distribution of the total length of priority streets for each route, but the differences were not drastic enough to change the current strategy. They were, however, able to identify areas where staff can share portions of the routes to complete removal on all major roadways before continuing on to secondary ones.
Roadway improvements have been recorded for decades in one of Elk Grove Village’s community databases. It contains much useful information such as the base and surface materials of a roadway, years in which a road was repaved, and years in which a road received some form of maintenance. This data has been integrated into the village’s GIS (Geographic Information System) to provide an interface to visualize the roadway pavement history.
The GIS allows users easy access to pavement information that can facilitate planning and scheduling of improvement projects as well as evaluation of the effectiveness of certain materials when looking at the road condition assessments. Highly accurate construction quantities can be calculated for roadway surface areas, sidewalk squares, curb lengths, and more because the village invested in base data for the GIS.
Land annexed into Elk Grove Village had been on display as a map in the Village Clerk’s Office for some time. This map served as a reference for village staff when receiving inquiries about unincorporated properties. Clerical staff realized the new GIS (Geographic Information System) program provided an opportunity to update the product.
The existing annexation information provided by the map was converted by the GIS staff into digital format and thorough investigation took place to resolve some overlaps, gaps, and missing annexations. When completed a new hard copy map was provided to the Clerk’s Office for display and an electronic PDF image was created as a reference for village staff and the public.
Riverside forestry management includes a tree inventory, tree management, and a tree planting program. The village’s GIS (Geographic Information System) supports all of these efforts as a medium for displaying and analyzing that information. The village forester identified an additional management strategy that is of interest to the local Landscape Advisory Commission and that is delineation of no planting zones.
These areas were provided to the GIS staff and created in the system making it easy for village personnel to view the existing tree inventory against the planned open spaces. Without a doubt, having a geographic representation of this plan will expedite future planting efforts and the open spaces will accentuate the unique landscape of Riverside.
Recently the Riverside Public Works Department was assisted by a Scout project to repair dilapidated benches throughout the village. With the blessing of the Public Works Director resident Ben Cox located and assessed all of the benches within the village. The data collected was provided to the GIS (Geographic Information System) staff to plot the bench locations and incorporate the condition information and photos taken.
Mapping the benches provides staff an inventory for future reference and a map product made it simple to identify how many and which benches would receive maintenance. The village now knows where to target continued efforts for bench maintenance in the future if desired.
A monthly process for Elk Grove Village is to identify the location and trends of foreclosures within its municipality. A subscription to RealtyTrac provides the desired information which is downloaded over the internet. The foreclosure information is provided to the GIS (Geographic Information System) staff where it is plotted on a map. The quantity of foreclosures is tallied in a line graph to realize trending as well.
These foreclosure products are useful for many departments as they direct staff attention to the locations or areas that may have maintenance issues, or be subject to crime or property damage. Police, health and community development staff have an opportunity to mitigate these occurrences because they are informed.
Recently the Riverside Historical Commission became aware that the Village’s GIS program could provide them assistance gaining property history information, particularly property images. Part of the Cook County Assessor’s workflow includes capturing an image of the front of every property in its database. Those images are available to the Village of Riverside through an existing data sharing agreement due to the Village’s GIS initiatives.
GIS staff was able to obtain images for the entire community and also managed the files so they could be located at the Village Museum and accessed easily by the Historical Commission volunteers. Realizing these additional resources were available saved the Commission a great deal of time and energy compared to the alternative of walking or driving the community to take their own photos.
A contour line is a representation of equal points of elevation. Contour lines are displayed successively in a contour map to display the change in elevation over an area. The interval between lines defines the resolution of the elevation data.
Elk Grove Village recently developed a one foot contour dataset from LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data collection to improve upon a two foot contour provided by Cook County. Other datasets can be derived from this elevation information such as a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) or Digital Terrain Model (DTM) and is simply another way to simulate the real world lay of the land. These elevation representations become very powerful decision support tools when overlaid with other infrastructure such as storm sewers in a GIS (Geographic Information System).
Elk Grove Village has recently purchased a GPS (Global Positioning System) unit to support data collection for its GIS (Geographic Information System). GPS data collection utilizes the GPS satellites in orbit around the Earth to calculate the x,y location of the GPS receiver as well as the time and elevation to a certain degree.
GPS is traditionally used to collect the location of infrastructure such as manholes, signs, fire hydrants, etc. After the data is collected it is downloaded, corrected, and then integrated into the GIS. The correction process involves an automated mathematical adjustment of the data according to records captured by nearby stationary monitoring stations.
Village staff will use this equipment annually to capture infrastructure from new construction projects and to initiate new projects which require intense data collection such as a parkway tree inventory or sign inventory. An added benefit of this device is that it can be used to locate facilities that may have been buried over time or that are covered by snow in the winter.
Rear yard drainage is a notable topic in Riverside these days as the village is preparing to have some drainage studies performed. The village has been using its GIS (Geographic Information System) program to track drainage complaints over the past two years to realize where, away from the Des Plaines River, residents are experiencing flooding or drainage problems.
Imagery, elevation, and structural improvements data will be provided by the GIS for the drainage study locations and potential solutions will be provided by the contracted consultants. Hopefully some economically feasible solutions will be realized and the storm drainage for these residents will become more predictable than the weather.
LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is a remote sensing technique where laser pulses are directed toward the earth and the time it takes for the impulse to return provides elevation information as well as some characteristics of the surface below. The village has just received LiDAR data from a private contract and a less dense and unclassified dataset from Cook County as part of the annual GIS Consortium data request.
A one foot contour dataset for the entire village was created from this point information which was the main objective to acquire LiDAR. However additional uses are being discovered of this information as well such as developing a tree canopy and other elevated infrastructure, supporting 3D mapping, and initiating a tree inventory, all of which were not available products of the former data capture procedure. Best of all, LiDAR is less expensive than the former elevation data collection techniques.
An annual process for the Riverside GIS (Geographic Information System) program is to obtain parcel data and ownership information from the county as they are the custodians of that data. As a part of the 2010 data exchange the village was provided LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) data.
LiDAR is a remote sensing technique where laser pulses are directed toward the earth and the time it takes for the impulse to return provides elevation information as well as some characteristics of the surface below. The village is currently using this information as an elevation resource as it provides a sample point every few feet. LiDAR can also be used to obtain a three dimensional view of an area and potentially derive additional GIS data. This data is made available from the county at no charge. This information is especially helpful given that the Village does not have a previous source of elevation information. This type of information comes into play when planning for flooding or other elevation sensitive projects.
The village of Riverside GIS (Geographic Information System) program mapped crosswalk locations in an area of town due to an event that occurred near a school. As a result of initiating this data creation, the remaining village crosswalks and some additional roadway striping information were mapped to have a complete inventory of their locations in the GIS system. Various village departments can now benefit from this information.
The Public Works Department can track where and when crosswalks are restriped and even give priority to crosswalks near schools and other stripping such as at police and fire stations. The Police Department or essentially any village department could evaluate and create a safe routes to school system which was eligible for infrastructure improvements funding at one time by the Illinois Department of Transportation. The GIS system is using this currently as support information for development of a sign inventory and can potentially reuse this information for future projects such as creating an on-street parking model.
The Tour of Elk Grove is an annual international bike race that takes place the first weekend in August. There are many components to the event including the races, block parties, a kids’ fest and more. Village staff are therefore highly involved in planning, setup, and management of the event.
GIS (Geographic Information System) services are utilized to coordinate these organization efforts with multiple maps. Map images are created to depict not only the race routes but also the layout of the block party area, emergency support stations, restroom locations, traffic control areas, and planning for detours, signage, and road closures. Address lists have also been generated to notify residents of limited vehicle access during the upcoming event. The support of GIS for this event has facilitated coordination for all involved and the information captured and managed through those services continues to grow every year.
As a member of the GIS Consortium the Village of Riverside participates in an annual data collection process which allows them to obtain remotely sensed information, or data collected from a distance. An advantage for the community is that they receive cost savings being a part of such a large group contracting these services. Data collection from the past two years has provided planimetric data such as buildings, driveways, roadways, etc. This spring the village collected a new orthophoto. This orthophoto is a series of aerial photos that have been geometrically corrected and referenced to remove distortions and properly represent the location of features in the image.
A quality control procedure was conducted to check for issues with image color, distortion, quality, shadow, and seam lines. When the final product is provided the village will have access to a 3 inch resolution orthophoto that will support planning and preliminary design, map presentation, utility mapping, infrastructure alignment, provide a historical record of development, and much more. This product is quite improved from the other imagery available, being a 1 foot resolution orthophoto from 2005.
Coordination between the Elk Grove Village Public Works and GIS Departments recently has enabled integration of televised sewer records into the GIS system. The initial objective of this effort was to be able to show where televising has taken place and link, or access, the corresponding videos by clicking on the sewer mains in a dynamic map. An added benefit was realized during the integration process in that all comments noted during the televising process such as the location of service lines or where cracks exist in the pipes could be mapped and/or queried.
Roughly a decade of sewer televising efforts was provided for this process which represents a significant portion of the community. Having so much information now connected to a mapping platform will allow the Public Works staff to evaluate their sewer infrastructure and more effectively plan improvements and maintenance. The GIS staff will also be able to use much of this information in efforts to build more detail into the sewer system such as mapping service lines.
A recent initiative for the Elk Grove Village Geographic Information System (GIS) has been the creation of police beat and sub beat information including coordination with the Northwest Central Dispatch Center who manages the Village’s emergency calls.
A desire of the Elk Grove Village Police Department is to better understand the dynamics of workload throughout the village and if certain areas could benefit from increased or an adjustment of patrol units. To realize the demand of the beats and sub beats the GIS was used to calculate statistics for 2008 and 2009 calls for service. Summarizing statistics by beat which as of now are generally defined by certain zoning types allows for an understanding of overall police activity. Further analysis by time of day showed which shifts are the busiest as well.
This information will provide a decision support tool as a restructure of beats is considered and can begin without interruption to dispatch services by testing dispatch changes along existing beat boundaries. Additional investigation of the data may suggest that patterns exist at even smaller time ranges which would suggest a shift of patrol at certain times of day or that certain types of incidents occur more often in some areas and result in a longer period of time at those types of calls.
After making use of these types of analysis it will be determined which are the most influential factors to determine patrol needs and can continue to be performed over time to validate trends and truly understand the policing demands.
Although Geographic Information System (GIS) are used to store and retrieve data often times in a highly complex fashion, they also provide a medium for map simple production. A special event map is a regular request of GIS professionals and can be generated in a relatively short time frame with good communication between the event coordinators and the map maker.
Because the Village of Riverside has invested in a GIS program, they are able to create many graphic products to support their day-to-day business and community events such as the Riverside Arts Fair, Farmer’s Market, and race events. These products provide a shared perspective and help organize efforts for event staff and attendees alike.
A recent development in the Riverside Geographic Information System (GIS) has been the creation of a street inventory. Information captured includes the type of surface material, road base material, cross section type, curb and gutter information, last improved dates, planned improvement dates, and other statistics that can be derived from the GIS such as the length of roadway and even surface area could be calculated quickly.
The street inventory is available to all staff at any time through the Server technology that the village has invested in as well as through the GIS. This data will provide an excellent resource for obtaining improvement estimates and to plan resurface programs in the long term.
The Elk Grove Village GIS (Geographic Information System) recently assisted an evaluation of outstanding tickets which to date has recovered tens of thousands of dollars for the village.
The address matching or “geocoding” process provided through the GIS and its address inventory allowed all unpaid tickets to be summarized by address eliminating data entry errors typically seen in the street name of the address. This summary provided a tally of fees to be sent out in one mailing to offenders who in some cases had hundreds or even thousands of dollars in outstanding fines. This action was not cost effective for the village until the GIS options noted above were available.
The results of this assessment will be evaluated against payments received allowing for further action for those avoiding the notice and/or repeat offenders. The village also has an option to pursue nonresident tickets that are outstanding to provide additional gains.
The recent collection of planimetric data or improved features such as buildings, roadways, parking lots, driveways, etc. in Elk Grove Village has provided for some new analysis possibilities through its GIS (Geographic Information System). One of the evaluations conducted was the distance between primary building structures and also a count of the number of addresses that exist within each building structure.
The results of this assessment will be shared with the village’s Fire Department and used to update such information in their database that inventories the businesses throughout the community. There is additional potential for use in dispatch to residential buildings for example that are not currently tracked to understand the number of families affected in a multiunit event or to realize the close proximity of adjacent homes on all sides of a building in the event of a house fire.
In early 2010 a multi-year planimetric data collection project was completed and the data incorporated into the Village of Riverside GIS (Geographic Information System) database. Information collected in this process included features such as roadways, sidewalks, driveways, recreation areas, curbs, retention walls, among many other things.
This new information provides a great resource of real world features to incorporate into existing and future map products. Another advantage of having this much new GIS data is the ability to perform analysis. And one of the first analysis projects was to determine impervious surfaces throughout the village. The evaluation consisted of comparing all impervious surfaces such as driveways, buildings, etc. against the existing parcel information and then calculating the percentage of each property that was improved. Looking at the final map output one can quickly understand where the most improved areas are in the village and this information can support decisions such as evaluating who would be most affected by initiation of a storm water fee.
The largest objective for initiating Geographic Information System (GIS) services in the Village of Riverside was to create a digital representation of the utility systems. This objective was realized when a Sewer and Water System Map Books were constructed at the turn of the new year. The books display the culmination of many projects that were necessary to produce such a resource. The first step was to convert GPS point data of the system structures such as fire hydrants, water valves, sewer manholes, etc. into the GIS system. Next the data needed to be connected with water and sewer main features. Additional structures were added as suggested by existing hard copy resources including as-builds and the former map books. Hydrant flow, manufacturer, identifiers, pipe material, and size information about the system was also entered as noted on plans, in other community databases such as FireHouse, and as provided by staff through their knowledge about the systems. The map books incorporate a page grid that was developed and the map design was generated utilizing the repository of other data layers that the GIS houses.
The Village took advantage of a printing agreement with FedEx Kinkos provided through their membership in the GIS Consortium. These products will be a resource for Public Works staff when out in the field and can be updated as a whole or one page at a time as needed when the utility system is updated in the GIS as a result of capital improvement projects.
At the heart of Geographic Information System (GIS) is the organization and storing of data. Typically the data is a geographic representation of a real world feature as well as a database containing fields of information describing that feature. GIS however does allow for an additional level of visualization besides analyzing the existing data within the system and that is the ability to link to existing resources that reside outside the GIS.
This technology called hyperlinking allows images, videos, and virtually any other electronic resource to be opened by simply inquiring further on a specific feature in the GIS. All that is required to achieve this functionality is the data entry of the location of the desired resource. If the existing documents have been named and organized effectively, the data entry process can be eliminated by associating the document names to information in the geographic feature’s attributes. An example of this would be matching flooding photos at a specific address to a property in the GIS for which address information already exists e.g. 1000 Cypress Ln linked to \\2008FloodPhotos\1000CypressLn.jpeg.
Linking has successfully been initiated with the Elk Grove Village Public Works department water service images. Other potential uses for hyperlinking in the GIS include opening scanned subdivision plats, a website on the internet, or televised sewer videos.
The benefit of initiating these links is that the user becomes empowered with as much information as is available in a quick and easy interaction from a central resource. Time is saved because you can gather information from a location perspective and no longer have to remember which drive and in which folder that resource was placed. In some cases users are provided extremely useful information through the links that they otherwise would not even known existed because it was created by another coworker or existed in another department.
Roadway improvements have been recorded for decades in one of Elk Grove Village’s community databases. It contains much useful information such as the base and surface materials of a roadway, years in which a road was repaved, and years in which a road received some form of maintenance. This data has been integrated into the village’s GIS (Geographic Information System) to provide an interface to visualize the roadway pavement history. The GIS allows users easy access to pavement information that can facilitate planning and scheduling of improvement projects as well as evaluation of the effectiveness of certain materials when looking at the road condition assessments. Highly accurate construction quantities can be calculated for roadway surface areas, sidewalk squares, curb lengths, and more because the village invested in base data for the GIS.
From its inception GIS has used hard copy maps as a presentation media for geographic information. Maps are still used extensively to display analysis results, however new opportunities in technology have provided other ways to distribute and even interact with data. Now-a-days it is commonplace to distribute maps electronically through e-mail as an image, in PDF format for example. Doing so saves both time and money as paper and ink supplies are spared and the information can be received by many people in a matter of seconds regardless of their location. Better yet, due to technology advances, interactive mapping applications are now available to everyone for consumption. These products place GIS tools in the hands of all users allowing them to perform geographic operations in a dynamic way, to discover their data and analysis results interactively, and still provide the opportunity to share that information in an electronic or hard copy fashion. The Village of Riverside has invested in such products through its GIS program and those interactive applications are known as MapOffice™ and MapOffice™ Advanced.
MapOffice™ is a free interactive map of all GIS Consortium member communities in the Chicago Metropolitan area and is available to the general public. This allows residents and business people alike to navigate a place and search for addresses, important places, measure distances, obtain parcel information including PIN numbers and zoning information, and even connect to other services such as the County Assessor, Microsoft’s Bird’s Eye View, and area school district information seamlessly.
MapOffice™ Advanced is an interactive map restricted to village staff in each GIS Consortium community which allows employees all of the functionality of MapOffice™ and then some. Additional tools provide the ability to identify floodway information, view utilities and associated data, map a list of properties of interest, and create address lists for mailings by simply choosing properties on the map. Additionally, custom information can be created to display in this product as well such as zoning boundaries. And the list of tools continues to be expanded based on requests.
Interactive maps are extremely useful tools to facilitate discussion and to derive conclusions about any location or event. In many locations they are used during public meetings and are very effective resources to focus attention to the matter at hand and also allow the flexibility to view areas near or far from an issue area. An opportunity that is not possible when using static images.
The Village of Riverside Finance Department recently took advantage of GIS (Geographic Information System) in an effort to assess were village stickers had not been purchased nor renewed. Village stickers are required for all vehicles that are registered to a Riverside address and a new sticker is required every year. Sticker fees range from $65 to $95 depending on the type of vehicle.
Initially a review of purchases in the previous year was performed in the Finance office to identify businesses that did not renew their stickers. Next GIS was utilized to compare all residential addresses against those that did purchase a 2009 sticker. This allowed for creation of a map of addresses where stickers were not purchased as well as a spreadsheet of those locations from which a mailing could be sent to remind those individuals and potentially to focus ticketing efforts at those locations. Significant penalties are enforced upon individuals who do not purchase a sticker after which they may purchase a current year sticker. The village web page concerning village stickers is available here or under the ‘For Residents’ tab on the www.riverside.il.us home page.
Considering penalty fees and potential new applicants a modest estimate of generated revenue to the village resulting from these efforts would be thousands of dollars. This use of GIS is a prime example of the decision support capabilities of the technology as it directs the efforts and attention of this village program.
The Elk Grove Village Finance Department recently took advantage of GIS (Geographic Information System) in an effort to assess were village stickers had not been purchased nor renewed. Village stickers are required for all registered or housed vehicles in the village and a new sticker is required every year. Sticker fees range from $20 to $145 depending on the type of vehicle and reduced rates are provided for certain demographics.
Initially a review of purchases in the previous year was performed in the GIS to identify businesses that did not renew their stickers. Next all residential addresses were compared against those that did purchase a 2009 sticker. This allowed for creation of a map of addresses where stickers were not purchased as well as a spreadsheet of those locations from which a mailing could be sent to remind those individuals and potentially to focus ticketing efforts at those locations. Citation enforcement begins June 1st and would result in not only the tickets, but an increase in cost for the sticker for late purchase. The village web page concerning village stickers is available here or under the Finance Department tab accessed through the ‘Village Government Information’ link on the www.elkgrove.org home page.
Considering both citation and late purchase fees a modest estimate of generated revenue to the village resulting from these efforts would be thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars. This use of GIS is a prime example of the decision support capabilities of the technology as it directs the efforts and attention of this village program.
A sign inventory allows for the quick identification of signs for replacement based on criteria such as age and condition or high vandalism areas. It can be used to manage personnel and maximize productivity if combined with work orders and maintenance activities as well as provide for supplemental information in map products as was done recently in a pedestrian safety assessment near Ames Elementary School in Riverside.
Presently the Riverside sign inventory consists only of traffic control signs including stop signs, yield signs, one way signs and the like. The system Geographic Information System (GIS) is setup, however, to include any kind of sign such as parking restriction signs and road name signs as well. Inclusion of these additional signs would create a more complete inventory.
Each sign is additionally provided a relationship to the post or structure that supports it. That way multiple signs can be added to existing support structures and if a support structure is damaged or missing the inventory will provide the information to identify what signs were on that structure. Potential lies in the fact that other infrastructure may be related to a post as well. For example a street light post may not only support the street light, but also signs.
Recently the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) revised the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) standards to promote increased safety on the nation’s streets and highways. As of January 22, 2008 there is a minimum sign retroreflectivity mandate meant to improve the visibility of traffic signs at night. Due to these changes state and local entities will be required over time to assess their signage, develop a replacement plan, replace non-conforming warning and regulatory signs, and eventually replace street name signs. Aware of these new regulations the GIS inventory can be utilized to prepare for and manage these phases of sign improvements.
The Elk Grove Village Fire Department has had Fire Map Books as a resource for many years to assist with dispatch to emergency response events. These map books display roadways and list the location of each street allowing for quick lookup of the general vicinity and routing for a service call. Over the years these maps has degraded in quality so the Geographic Information System (GIS) was leveraged to recreate these map products.
One of the fundamental functions of the GIS software is the ability to make maps and the fact that much of the needed information had already been mapped in the system made GIS a natural fit for reproducing this product. The main task would be creating the grid information to provide the same type of quick lookup of a location and the production of a new map look.
A benefit of using the GIS was that it provided for the addition of other related information into the maps such as address ranges and fire hydrant locations which were not a part of the former map books. Other advantages of making these products with the GIS were that the layers of information and the map look can be updated at any point. Therefore an update would only require the updates to be made in the GIS office, a new print of the page, and replacement of the former map page. Because the system produces electronic products all of the pages are available as images and can be distributed via e-mail to outside agencies or communities if necessary.
The grid layers formulated for this project were also able to be incorporated into the dispatch information that is provided by Northwest Central Dispatch. So now included with the dispatch information will be a reference to the page and grid number of the incident location in their map books.
Planimetric data are geographic features captured during a photogrammetric (airplane fight) mapping process that are flat and without elevation information to depict the terrain. Such features include bridges, roadways, building footprints, bodies of water, and railroad lines. Photogrammetry is the most cost-effective method for producing this type of mapping information for large areas and these features typically represent the base data in a map. As a member of the GIS Consortium the Village of Riverside participates in an annual data collection process which allows them to obtain such planimetric data. An advantage for the community is that they receive cost savings being a part of such a large group contracting these services. The current service provider for photogrammetric mapping is Ayres and Associates of Madison, WI.
There is a processing and review procedure for the data to be sure it meets the accuracy standards that have been established by the GIS Consortium. Generally, all planimetric features will be within 1.67’ of their actual field location if collected under the traditional Consortium standards. On occasion the data collection has had to deviate from those standards due to circumstances outside of a village’s control such as experienced by Elk Grove Village due to its proximity to O’Hare International Airport and the flight restrictions they have over and around the village. The data collection in Riverside has not been affected by any circumstances and therefore meets the GIS Consortium standards.
In the spring of 2008 and 2009 data was collected for the Village of Riverside. Planimetric features for the South half of the community were delivered, reviewed, and integrated into the GIS (Geographic Information System) in the fall of 2008 and the North half of the community in the fall of 2009. You may have noticed this data in the MapOffice™ interactive mapping application http://www.mgpinc.com/MapOffice™/.
As mentioned above, this data is usually used to compose a map presentation, but also provides for impervious surface estimations, GASB34 statistics, routing, cost estimates for replacement or removal of infrastructure, and preliminary design or planning.
Planimetric data are geographic features captured during a photogrammetric (airplane fight) mapping process that are flat and without elevation information to depict the terrain. Such features include bridges, roadways, building footprints, bodies of water, and railroad lines. Photogrammetry is the most cost-effective method for producing this type of mapping information for large areas and these features typically represent the base data in a map.
As a member of the GIS Consortium Elk Grove Village participates in an annual data collection process which allows them to obtain such planimetric data. An advantage for the community is that they receive cost savings being a part of such a large group contracting these services. The current service provider for photogrammetric mapping is Ayres and Associates of Madison, WI. There is a processing and review procedure for the data to be sure it meets the accuracy standards that have been established by the GIS Consortium. Generally, all planimetric features will be within 1.67’ of their actual field location if collected under the traditional Consortium standards. On occasion the data collection has had to deviate from those standards due to circumstances outside of the village’s control. Elk Grove Village unfortunately falls into this category due to its proximity to O’Hare International Airport and the flight restrictions they have over and around the village.
In the spring of 2009 data was collected for Elk Grove Village and planimetric features for the entire community were delivered, reviewed, and integrated into the GIS (Geographic Information System) in the fall. You may have noticed this new data in the MapOffice™ interactive mapping application http://www.mgpinc.com/MapOffice™/. The alternate flight height that was available provided for these features to be within 3.33’ of their actual location which was acceptable and there was an additional cost savings because this was a less accurate product compared to the traditional data collection standards.
As mentioned above, this data is usually used to compose a map presentation, but also provides for impervious surface estimations, GASB34 statistics, routing, cost estimates for replacement or removal of infrastructure, and preliminary design or planning.
As was described in the August 2009 article, a Village of Riverside master address database was created in the Geographic Information System (GIS). This database was generated from several sources including water billing, permits, fire inspections, and business licenses. Each address follows the United States Postal standard format and is represented geographically by a point at the location of the addressed structure or property.
Another standard used in GIS is an address range. Address ranges are represented by line features usually along the centerline of a roadway and store the sequence of addresses on the left and right side of the line (traditionally odd versus even addresses or vice versa). These ranges are designed to match the addressed buildings as well as provide for an estimate location of theoretical addresses between actual ones.
An address range can assist in address numbering in cases where undeveloped land is subdivided and addresses need to be created. But most often this resource is used for emergency support in which services are dispatched to a location that is provided by an individual making an emergency call. Emergency response could be delayed if dispatch relied only on actual addresses because there can be miscommunication between the call center personnel and those making the call. If the address provided does not match an actual address the address range can be referenced and provide the estimated location of that emergency to ensure a timely response.
The standard that has been applied in Riverside is to break these address lines at all intersections. This provides for yet another locating option - to search for an intersection of two roadways rather than an address. A block, intersection to intersection, ideally consists of one hundred addresses but this type of address ranging usually exists only in grid structured city centers. Therefore address ranges are very useful for areas that do not follow a grid.
Locating by address, address range, or intersection introduces many options by which to search for a place and each has their use or support for one another. A user of this information simply needs to understand how they benefit from each of these tools and apply them.
Addresses play an important role in the daily activities of Village of Riverside staff whether it is for water billing information, permits, or locating a resident in case of an emergency. In addition, a physical address can serve as a link for answering such questions as what school district do I belong to or what zoning district am I in? However, obtaining this information for a specific address often requires searching through multiple spreadsheets, databases, and paper documents.
In order to create a centralized location for the address information in Riverside a master address database was created in the Geographic Information System (GIS). This database was generated from several sources including water billing, permits, fire inspections, and business licenses. It was necessary to utilize all address resources to ensure the existing databases and spreadsheets could relate to this new address resource. Because these independent sources were each developed with a specific focus, which limited them from including all addresses within the community, it is also important to obtain all address records from these independents sources. For example, one address database may have only included business addresses, another contained residential addresses, and a third identified suite and apartment information.
Each address in the master database follows the United States Postal standard with a prefix direction, address number, street, street type (such as boulevard or avenue) and a suffix direction. This information is captured in separate fields that allows for combining all of those values or just a select few. An example is 1190 Arlington Heights or 1190 S Arlington Heights Rd.
The GIS allows for all of the addresses in the database to be represented by a point feature referencing an x and y coordinate that places it in a known location on the earth. This point is linked to a table containing additional information about that particular address including a Property Identification Number or PIN number and assessor information. The address point is typically placed in the center of the corresponding parcel, but can be placed at a more descriptive location such as the main entrance by using aerial imagery and building footprint information. Moreover, this address is stored as a primary address point. Often times additional buildings and parking lots that have the same address as the main building are located on another parcel. These structures are given a secondary address point to differentiate them from the primary address location.
By design, the GIS allows for quick and simple retrieval of data at a particular location. An address point can be identified and overlaid with additional data layers including utilities, subdivisions, school districts, and a road network to quickly determine the location of the nearest fire hydrant to a property or the number of homes within a particular school district. This eliminates the need for village staff to check multiple sources of information which can save time, money, and in the case of emergency services, lives. Overall, it is safe to say that the enhancements a village receives by having an accurate address database will become known as the GIS programs continue to evolve
All Elk Grove Village police incidents are reported and captured in a database where they can be managed over time. The introduction of GIS in the village has provided the police department an opportunity to enhance their perception and understanding of the distribution of incidents by visually placing them on a map.
Since November of 2008, the police department has provided a monthly report of various incidents that have occurred. An address or street intersection is used to locate each reported event. Incidents being mapped include motor vehicle burglaries, residential burglaries, juvenile nuisance, criminal damage to property, thefts, stolen vehicles, traffic crashes, and hit and runs.
While viewing these map products it becomes apparent where incidents are being repeated. Geographic analysis allows for consideration of adjacent facilities, institutions, and natural features such as parks and schools that may influence these activities. Displaying this information by police beat provides additional evaluation of how active each area is and if personnel need to be distributed differently throughout those beats. The report information includes the time of the incident which could also provide insight into which areas may benefit from patrol at certain times of the day.
A chart is also developed to track the quantity of incidents over time. The chart is updated and provided every month and shows trends in the number of incidents that have occurred. Reviewing this chart provides an additional resource to consider the other factors that contribute to the police incidents. For example, the relationship between car accidents and the winter weather season or the correlation between juvenile nuisance and summer vacation from school can be inferred because those circumstances are limited to a certain part of the year. Over time, this chart could potentially provide a measure of police performance if incidents are being mitigated more effectively.
Recently a half year evaluation was conducted by compiling the data for the first six months of the year. The resulting products highlight the locations that are seeing repeated incidents and may validate a need for increased police presence.
As previously mentioned, these products have just begun to provide for increased understanding of these events and the use of GIS will continue to support the Elk Grove Village Police Department by providing decision support tools and analysis materials.
Riverside has a central business district that includes a train station for the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway. The railway services communities from Aurora to Chicago and is convienent for the residents of Riverside and adjacent cities and villages such as Lyons and North Riverside.
Like many communities in the Chicago Metropolitan area, having a relatively dense population near this type of public transportation creates an interesting demand and use of parking facilities. Individuals travel to the village center to work, take the train elsewhere,and or to take advantage of the local amenities. Realizing the dynamics of parking needs desired by those visitors and residents living in the town center is necessary to promote the village and these services being provided.
The Village of Riverside has used its Geographic Information System (GIS) resources to gain a unique perspective of the parking status in relation to licenses and parking permits on record. Mapping active licenses in the community allowed village staff to see where vehicles are owned and where concentrations demand more parking. The parking permit map allowed for visualization of the concentration of vehicles as well as the the type of permits being used. Furthermore, it suggests lengths of time or periods of the day those parking spaces are being utilized. Additionally, an analysis of the disparty between these two sets of information could possibly identify some violations taking place such as residents that have a license but are not obtaining a permit.
The next step in the parking evaluation will include a parking model where parking lots, spaces, and restrictions will be added to the GIS. This will assist in managing the parking facilities and regulations as well as providing insight that may highlight potential for additional parking areas and ways to make the current areas more efficient.
Being situated along a river has many advantages, but can also create many issues that have a direct impact on the residents adjacent to these natural features. Riverside has most of its southern boundary defined by the Des Plaines River and there are significant natural areas throughout the community that surround the river which provide for activities such as fishing and scenic walking. These landscapes usually act as a buffer from flooding that can occur during major rain events, but do not always absorb the impact of these events.
The Geographic Information System (GIS) provides the community a resource to consume Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) flood information. This data is updated every year and helps determine insurance rates and flood hazards in developed areas. The FEMA data can be combined with property and other geographic information and features in the GIS that allows for recognition of trends and provides a superior decision making resource when compared to previous methods.
This information is currently being provided to village staff as a map image and through a mapping application called MapOffice™ Advanced. MapOffice™ Advanced provides an interactive resource where staff can quickly view properties, addresses, roadways, waterways, and FEMA flood zones. The map image provides similar viewing capability, but has also incorporated other flood and drainage information that has been captured in the GIS such as the extent of the flooding from the September 2008 storm event and yard drainage issues that have been reported throughout the community.
Other geographic analysis is being considered to further impower village staff and support their efforts to mitigate these events and issues. In the meantime, combining and overlaying this various but related information will continue to provide a valuable resource for the village.
The Insurance Services Organization (ISO) is an advisory organization that evaluates risk with the objective to help their customers measure, manage, and reduce risk. In a government setting, ISO will gather information that is often used in insurance underwriting. Therefore they will evaluate how well a municipality manages and mitigates risk and those factors directly affect residents and their insurance premiums.
Fire department staff in Elk Grove Village were aware of an ISO inspection that would be taking place in the near future and chose to utilize Geographic Information System (GIS) resources to communicate the municipal services that are provided and managed to ISO. The Public Protection Classification (PPC) program, a fire protection analysis, and their Fire Suppression Rating Schedule (FSRS) would be used by ISO in this case to assign a rating for the community on a scale of 1 to 10, with Class 1 providing the best fire protection.
GIS was first leveraged to identify the water system including water main location and diameter, and hydrant locations and their unique identification numbers. Hydrant flow test information was then incorporated into the hydrant GIS layer from an existing spreadsheet that is maintained by the fire department. GIS analysis was performed to determine a series of response areas based on varying criteria. One example is a 1.5 mile response area from each fire station which easily shows areas that are within that distance from a fire station. Similar response areas were determined from the fire stations considering a time factor rather than distance.
This information was distributed in multiple formats to meet the needs of the fire department personnel. The map images were placed at a shared location where fire staff could view and/or print them. The data was also made available in an ArcReader (PMF) Project. ArcReader is a free product that allows fire staff the opportunity to view an interactive map of the community along with all of the specific ISO inspection data they requested.
Much more fire information is being incorporated into the GIS and electronic format to provide locational information that allows for quick modification to existing projects and products and the creation of new ones which, as discussed here, can significantly impact and assist a department.
One of the latest Geographic Information System (GIS) developments in Riverside has been the creation of a community Zoning Map and Street Map. It was requested that the existing village Zoning Map be created within the GIS Department as a color map depicting the zoning boundaries as well as the proper zoning classification. While the zonig map is driven by the local community the street map is more of a GIS Consortium (GISC) standard map product that is suggested as soon as a community joins the consortium. The street map provides a good basis for future mapping products in that much of the fundamental community information is present. These maps have been completed by incorporating many layers of information that have been formulated since the inception of the program.
As mentioned previously, the zoning map requires the creation of zoning boundaries with their respective zoning types displayed according to a proper color scheme. The former zoning map was referenced to be sure that all of the previous map elements were incorporated such as the district requirements, revision list, legend and effective date. The street map incorporates important places, recreation areas and trails throughout the community. A street name index was also created which can be very useful for an individual who is not familiar with the village as it provides a gird number of where to find a given street in the map.
Other than the layout of the map itself, the data used in both maps helps to give them a consistant look and includes the street names, roadways, neighboring communities and address grid. Rather than having these maps made at separate times during the fiscal year these two maps are created at a similar time making it easier to consider what message each map communicates as well as the similarities that would persist between the maps.
There have been a number of map reviews resulting in the final products. These maps are currently being distributed throughout the village and can be provided as either a hard copy that is printed at almost any size desired, depending on printing resources, or electronically in an image format such as a PDF that is viewable with Adobe Reader. All data layers within the map have been stored in geographic databases that allow for continued use, modification and additions. The map layout has also been saved so that it is available for future map production which allows for the underlying data features within the existing map to be updated while the layout remains the same.
In conclusion, it is important to note that wondering where you are in town or what zoning district a property falls under are questions that are asked everyday. Moreover, by having the essential tools such as accurate maps to answer these questions the efficiency of the village staff’s daily workflow can be enhanced greatly.
Information captured in a Geographic Information System (GIS) can be distributed in many different ways including, but not limited to, hard copy map prints, electronic image files, Google EarthTM and as an ArcReaderTM (PMF) project. Of these methods of distribution, ArcReaderTM has been found to work quite well in Elk Grove Village.
ArcReader is a free data viewing application provided by ESRI, the leading GIS software development and services provider. This software allows for the development of customized interactive maps by the community’s GIS Department that provide for map viewing, printing and querying of GIS data. ArcReaderTM can be downloaded from the ESRI website at http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/arcreader/download.html.
So far, ArcReader Projects have been created for the 2009 Alexian Brothers Bike Race, the Public Works Department, the Clerks Office and most recently the Fire Department. Each ArcReader project contains basic community information like addresses, street names, parcels, water features and roadways as well as more specific information pertaining to the specific event or department. Some examples of how ArcReader projects have been used within Elk Grove Village are as follows:
- The Bike Race ArcReader project provides a shared resource of information for all geographical locations pertaining to the race event and will continue to evolve as more information is mapped.
- The Public Works ArcReaderTM project provides information for utilities throughout the village as well as department specific information that has been mapped such as snow plow routes and tree trimming areas.
- The Clerks ArcReaderTM project includes the zoning, subdivision and annexation layers.
- The Fire Department ArcReader project incorporates fire districts, automatic aide areas, response analysis layers, geographical information for the trails, groves, and water depths and hydrant flow information.
Deploying geographic information in this way has provided for a common location for related information and the ability to view where these events, infrastructure, services and regulations exist throughout the community. Once the data is mapped in the GIS it can continue to expand in accuracy of geographic representation and by capturing additional attribute information. Often, analysis is requested after realizing the relationships that exists between all of this information and the results can bring a significant benefit to a staff, department or the entire community.
A recent addition to the Village of Riverside has been the Geographic Information System (GIS) services. Although GIS is being used in the village to inventory multiple data items the tree inventory has gained popularity. A few years ago the village used Davey Consultants to locate the trees in the village parks using GPS equipment. They also identified trees existing in the parkways and associated that information to the nearest address. This information was incorporated into the GIS by downloading the GPS data which was already in a geographic data format because of the original collection tools that were utilized. The tabular data was then matched to an address in the GIS system and from there it was incorporated into a geographic database with location context.
Village Forester, Mike Collins, had also maintained records of new tree plantings and removals since the initial data collection. These records were considered as valuable information to be updated to the inventory as well as many other attributes such as tree widths, trimming schedules and overall tree condition. Moreover, the versatility of the database was made so that it can be expanded at any time to capture more related information that may assist in making more informative decisions when needed. The GIS was recently leveraged to determine the overall distribution of trees in the community with a specialized interest in clusters of specific tree types, particularly the Ash and Elm tree species that have potential to be affected by invasive diseases such as the Emerald Ash Borer or Dutch Elm Disease. This kind of geographic analysis allows for a much faster response to reports of these invasive species and targets the efforts necessary to contain their spread not only within the Village of Riverside, but from traversing to other neighboring communities.
Specific interest was given to Ash trees within the community and a series of maps were created to identify where these trees were located in Riverside. Together the maps were then used to form an index of the entire community where each page displayed information at a legible extent. Thus communicating the scope of the analysis in a more effective manner by combining the Ash tree data in both the parks and parkways. Lastly, the Public Works Assistant Director, Nathan Thiel, posted these maps on the village website making it available to all village residents. Its format allows a resident to choose an area on a village map and quickly analyze the distribution of Ash Trees in a specific area. The link to this resource is available at http://riverside.il.us/ under the Village Quick Links and is titled “Public Ash Tree Inventory.”
One of the latest Geographic Information System (GIS) developments in Elk Grove Village has been the creation of a community Zoning Map and Street Map. It was requested that the village be provided with a color map depicting the zoning boundaries as well as the proper zoning classification. While the zonig map is driven by the local community the street map is more of a GIS Consortium (GISC) standard map product that is suggested as soon as a community joins the consortium. The street map provides a good basis for future mapping products in that much of the fundamental community information is present. These maps have been completed by incorporating many layers of information that have been formulated since the inception of the program.
As mentioned previously, the zoning map requires the creation of zoning boundaries with their respective zoning types listed usually done by displaying these districts in the form of a proper color scheme. The former black and white zoning map was referenced to be sure that all of the previous map elements were incorporated such as the street name index, revision list, legend and effective date. The street map incorporates important places, recreation areas and trails throughout the community. Not to be overlooked, the street name index can be very useful for an individual who is not familiar with the village. Considering this, the index has been expanded to include the grid number of the important places and recreation areas providing map users with a reference for quickly looking a specific place of interest.
Other than the layout of the map itself, the data used in both maps helps to give them a consistant look and includes the street names, roadways, neighboring communities and grid. Rather than having these maps made at separate times during the fiscal year these two maps are created at the same time making it easier to consider what message each map communicates as well as the similarities that would persist between the maps.
There have been a number of map reviews resulting in the final products. These maps are currently being distributed throughout the village and can be provided as either a hard copy that is printed at almost any size desired or electronically in an image format such as a PDF that is viewable with Adobe Reader. All data layers within the map have been stored in geographic databases that allow for continued use, modification and additions. The map layout has also saved so that it is available for future map production which allows for the underlying data features within the existing map to be updated while the layout of the existing map remains the same.
In conclusion, it is important to note that knowing where you are in town or what zoning district a property falls under are questions that are asked everyday. Moreover, by having the essential tools such as accurate maps to answer these questions the efficiency of the village staff’s daily workflow can be enhanced greatly.