Public safety is a priority for the police department in any municipality. Particularly, the safety of children in public areas should be carefully managed. Recently the village contacted the use of its geographic information system (GIS) department to produce a set of maps displaying where the current locations of school speed zone and no cell phone use signs are distributed around the village.
Using notes provided by the police department, the locations of each sign were entered into GIS. The resulting maps produced after the data was entered in provides a geographical representation of where and what signs are placed near an area of interest (in this case, schools). Furthermore, it allows additional signage to be installed in critical areas that are not covered but current sign placement and to manage the future installation of signs. Without the use of GIS the sign locations would be maintained in a spreadsheet which does not allow a useful means to visualize where signs are actually installed on the ground.
The Lake Forest Police Department has recently collaborated with the GIS department to spatially display the city’s crime and incident data within MapOffice. Previously the GIS department would create maps displaying the most current crime locations as well as trends that may have been occurring over time. These maps were typically created on a monthly basis. Although the timeline in which the maps were delivered was effective, there may be a need to analyze data more frequently depending on consistency of the occurrences.
The GIS Department has enabled the police to analyze crime and incident data for a specific day, week, month or year by integrating the data into MapOffice’s Business Intelligence feature. Business Intelligence can access live data from law enforcements crime and incident records. The data that is actively being edited by the Lake Forest Police Department is held within a record management system. GIS can connect to the record management system, read the data and spatially display the data in MapOffice. . By referencing a live data feed, information can be viewed and analyzed on an up to the minute basis in MapOffice.
Police personnel now have the ability to select a desired incident(s), specify a time period, produce a map of the incidents, and export the map and associated data all from their own workstation. The spatial analysis aspect of crime reporting now can be accomplished independently and more efficiently.
There has been a recent addition to the Highland Park mapping application, MapOffice™ Advanced! Business Intelligence is a tool that is designed with the community databases such as Firehouse to give the user a dynamic look into map records.
Historically, Firehouse was only viewable through the application itself. Now, the Fire Department employees can quickly and easily display information from Firehouse with MapOffice™! At the tip of their fingers they can view Fire Inspection records for any desired amount of time with multiple searches at once. This dramatically cuts down the time it takes to look up each record in the Firehouse application.
The power of Business Intelligence brings great benefit to the community and empowers the users. With Business Intelligence, the user is capable of looking up a multitude of data at one time.
The City of Lake Forest’s Fire Department recently requested that GIS construct a map to display Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) and Special Rescue Team (SRT) assets in Lake and McHenry Counties. The MABAS and SRT assets are spread throughout Lake and McHenry Counties. Fire needed a method of knowing where assets were located while simultaneously being able to identify the type of asset.
In GIS, a list of fire station locations was geocoded and displayed over the Lake and McHenry Counties. Each fire station was then labeled according to which assets were stored at that given location. The assets were then color coded to identify the difference between MABAS and SRT assets.
The results of this project allow users an effective method of visualization that enables a more legible method of reviewing MABAS and SRT asset location information. Fire can use this location data to manage emergency response protocols. This project assists MABAS Division 4 personnel and Lake and McHenry Counties Specialized Rescue Team personnel efficiently assess where assets are located and how to spatially use these assets.
The City of Highland Park uses the New Application to dispatch Fire and Police units to reported incidents. From the addresses used to accurately respond to incidents to the background layers used in the map, New World relies heavily on GIS information. Without accurate GIS information supplied by the City, the New World application would have difficulty creating accurate responses. One of the most crucial factors in accurate responses are good addresses. This is supplied by the GIS systems as address points and a street centerline. These are regularly reviewed and updated by the GIS Office and other City Employees.
The New World application requires data to be in a specific format with specific fields. The GIS Office wrote a script that efficiently converts the GIS data to required format. The GIS Office also provides support during data by assisting the Police Department with loading the GIS data into New World. Their primary role during this process is resolving data related issues.
Without a robust GIS, the City would have o pay for GIS data provided by a vendor. This data would not be as accurate as data maintained by the City. Also, the City would not have the direct support they currently have during the data updates. Maintaining an accurate and complete GIS ensure that New World is using the best data possible and that it is returning accurate responses. The residents of Highland Park can be assured that their dispatch services will respond efficiently, should they ever need them.
In the wake of last year’s power outages, the Village of Skokie has been working with ComEd to solidify the communication during outage events. On June 21, 2012 the Village, ComEd and other surrounding communities participated in disaster exercise aimed at testing the communication and response in the Village and with ComEd. The exercise, a simulated tornado, called for events ranging from gas leaks and fires to overturned tankers spilling fuel into the sewer system to looters. The Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) played a supporting role in the dissemination of information once events began to occur. Using a database to input the calls for service and MapOffice™ Advanced to display the information through Business Intelligence, the GIS Specialist was able to track events and gives decision makers more information to make better informed decisions.
Managing vehicle response times is a critical component of any local or regional public safety agency. Having the drivers of each vehicle trained with an in-depth knowledge of the community’s road network and address layout is vital, as knowing the shortest or best route to a location could make the difference between a successful and a failed emergency response. To assist with helping the department’s engine and ambulance drivers to learn the city street network, the City of Des Plaines, IL Fire Department asked the city’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department to create a series of grid maps covering the entire community, which could be used as a guide to locate a specific street or address when en route to an emergency response call.
To start the grid development process, the GIS staff provided the Fire Department with a basic street map of the city, which could be used as a template to divide the community into grids based on the department’s different response criteria (i.e. engine response area, automatic aid, etc). Once the city was divided, the map was returned to the GIS department and a series of preliminary maps of each grid were developed for the department to review, with each map containing the street names and addresses present in each grid. Through a series of reviews, the maps were steadily built into the final product, with hydrants, park names, and high risk building locations being added as supplemental features to the street names and addresses already present on the maps. Once the final gird maps were developed and approved, they were provided to the Fire Department and combined into map books that are currently available in each vehicle for reference.
By developing the grid maps, the Fire Department was able to leverage the street network and address information, along with other critical fire response features, that are available in the city’s GIS system and use that information to enhance the department’s day-to-day operations. By making this information readily available to the department’s vehicle operators, the department has improved the ability of each driver to navigate the most efficient path to an emergency location, thereby increasing the chances that they will respond to each call successfully.
The Village of Oak Brook is located at the junction of two major highways, with a third highway located just to the Village’s northeast boundary. As a result of the Village’s close proximity to these highways, Oak Brook’s fire department is assigned to respond to emergencies on portions of all three highways. The fire department previously used an outdated map book to determine routing and location. But due to recent construction on the highways and the Village’s switch to a new dispatch center, the fire department found it necessary to create designated highway districts for their response areas.
The first step to creating new districts was to receive updated mile marker locations from the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority. Once the mile marker points were plotted on an aerial map, the fire department was able to field check their locations and determine how to layout the districts based off of entrance and exit ramps, and the coverage areas assigned by the state. After multiple drafts were created and reviewed, the fire department was able to determine exact boundaries and assign district numbers based off of the highway name and direction of travel. It was essential to use GIS while creating these new districts not only for the visual aid that it provided, but also its unique ability to provide spatially accurate locations for all mile markers, entrance and exit ramps, emergency turnarounds, and toll booths.
About every ten years a Fire Department conducts a review of their services in order to increase their chances of getting a better Insurance Services Organization (ISO) rating; the better a rating the Fire Department receives, the more money a commercial property will save on their fire insurance. In order to prepare for this evaluation, The City of Park Ridge Fire Department is using all the techniques they can find to boost their chances of a better overall rating. A technology aid that was not around the last time they conducted an ISO evaluation was the Geographic Information System or better known as GIS.
Although GIS is not the only contributor to this in-depth evaluation process, it definitely allows the Fire Department to take advantage of their in-house GIS staff to prepare maps and data at a lower cost. These maps and data outputs will supply the ISO reviewer with the information that they need in order to accurately judge the type of services the Park Ridge Fire Department supplies and should in help in all efforts to better the city’s ISO rating. In addition, should any other questions arise during the review process; the GIS will be a great place to start when trying to gather quick and accurate information; thus proving the usefulness of the Geographic Information System’s ability to help when needed and better yet, save people some money.
The primary responsibility of all local government public safety agencies is to understand the location and extent of their designated response coverage areas, especially when it comes to providing mutual aid support across municipal boundaries. In many cases, knowing this information before responding to an emergency call can make the difference between a response ending in success and a response ending in tragedy. For the Village of Winnetka, IL Fire department a recent change to their response coverage grid numbering system lead them to collaborate with the village’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department to redesign the department fire grid map that is used both internally by department staff and provided to surrounding communities to assist with mutual aid support.
The primary component of the map redesign was to determine the new grid numbers and to update the grid boundaries to accurately reflect the established response areas. As part of this review, it was discovered that the existing map was inaccurately showing that the village was responsible for an area that had previously been annexed into a neighboring community, which could have lead to a miscommunication in who should respond in an emergency situation. Making sure issues like that were resolved and accurately reflected on the map is critical to the success of the new grid implementation and, ultimately, the map’s usefulness to the department. By correcting inaccuracies in the Fire department’s grid system, and using GIS to create an accurate and easy to understand map reflecting the corrections, the village has improved the overall safety of its residents by removing potential confusion between mutual aid departments regarding who should respond to certain locations within the village limits.
Identifying and responding to concerns regarding the safety of residents is always a top priority of local government. The ability of a community to respond to a concern varies based, among other things, on the nature of the concern, the availability of funds, and the availability of staff. In some cases, the best solution to an issue is simply to notify a community that there is a problem so they can determine an appropriate course of action. For the City of Des Plaines, IL identifying fire hydrant locations that may be inaccessible to the Fire department serves as an example of identifying a potential problem before it becomes a bigger issue that negatively impacts community residents.
Two of the biggest problem areas for fire hydrant access are along the two interstates that border the eastern and southern edges of the city. To assist with identifying hydrants in these areas with limited accessibility, the city’s Geographic Information System (GIS) department generated a map showing the extent of each interstate with the city’s fire hydrant information included. While this helped to show proximity of the hydrants to the interstates, it failed to show any impedances that may restrict how and when a hydrant can be used. To resolve that issue, the GIS department staff used plans provided by the Engineering department to map out all sound walls and other features along the interstates that could prevent a hydrant from being accessed in the event of an emergency.
With a resource for visualizing the current hydrant locations, along with their potential impedances, the Fire Department was able to easily identify hotspots along each road where a hydrant’s accessibility was either partially or completely restricted. Knowing about these hotspot areas before an emergency occurs allows the department to plan for alternate solutions and be better equipped to respond appropriately to each event.
As a part of its disaster preparedness process, the Village of Glencoe has been working with GIS to build a repository of maps to meet a variety of needs. One of the recent projects was the creation of an evacuation route map to distribute to the public during an event. The letter-sized map clearly highlights the main roads that lead in and out of the Village. By having copies on hand during an emergency, community staff will be able to quickly direct people to safety, even if they are unfamiliar with the area.
Without GIS, emergency planners would either have to hand-draw and copy a map or hire an outside vendor to create these maps at a considerably higher cost. Plus, as the Village continues to change over time, GIS can be used to update these maps without taking up valuable staff time. Even the initial creation of the map was efficient because existing data was used as the basis.
Every five years the City of Highland Park must be renew their accreditation with the Commission of Fire Accreditation International (CFAI). This involves gathering a lot of information regarding Fire Department resources such as station response times and resource deployment. It also includes gathering demographic information about the community such as age and population density. The goal of the accreditation review is to assess the City’s Fire Department ability to properly deploy resources.
One report required by CFAI is a breakdown of the types of structures per fire grid. Essentially they are looking for primary structures such as a house or shopping center versus a secondary structure such as a garage or shed. They also want a breakdown of the use for each structure such as residential, commercial, or school. Creating this report requires classifying each structure with a type classification derived from address point information and then assigning it a Zoning District designation as well as a Fire Grid designation to each structure.
The address classification, Zoning District classification, building areas, and Fire Grids were combined into one summary table by using GIS. This table was then summarized by Fire Grid to create a final report of the types of structures for each Fire Grid. Without the availability of GIS, this report would have taken many more man hours and involved several Departments to create an estimate of structures per Fire Grid.
For local government, a Geographic Information System (GIS) can provide many helpful services, from basic map product development to complicated utility systems mapping. It can also provide communities with a powerful tool to analyze interactions between various spatial features and generate information that would not otherwise be available. For the City of Des Plaines, IL, GIS was recently used to analyze the response areas of the Fire Department’s ladder trucks and how they are influenced by the numerous railroad crossings that dot the City landscape.
Currently, there are 33 commuter and freight line at-grade railroad crossings in the City limits, which can cause serious delays to daily traffic flows and emergency response efforts. To help show how the coverage areas of the City’s two ladder trucks are impacted by these delays, the Fire Department asked the City’s GIS department to run an analysis that took into account three main factors: speed limit, railroad crossing locations, and average delay times for each commuter and freight line. Including speed limit in the analysis is critical for modeling how fast a truck can travel along a road, which impacts how far it can go within a given amount of time. By including the railroad crossing locations and average delay times, in combination with the speed limit information, the GIS department was able to show that speed of travel along a road, while important, is not the only relevant factor in how the City’s coverage areas are determined.
While the Fire Department knew that railroad crossings severally impacted the City’s coverage areas prior to the running analysis, having a visual representation of this information was critical for understanding how drastic these areas are reduced when a delay occurs. Using GIS to model the interactions between all the factors involved in the analysis has provided the department with a powerful tool for developing alternate response routes and coverage plans that, ultimately, provide better and more effective fire protection to the City residents.
The ambulances for the Village of Wheeling Fire Department can take patients to approximately 30 hospitals in the Chicago-land area. Because some of the hospitals are frequented less and are many miles outside the Village limits, each ambulance contains a book of maps detailing the location of each hospital. The maps are simple location maps made from data over 10 years old. The Fire Department requested that the maps be modified and updated to reflect current data.
A new map book was created with each page of the book representing a different hospital. The street data was updated and the page was divided into two separate maps: a large map showing the location of the hospital and a smaller map showing its location in relation to the surrounding communities. By having the maps in each ambulance, the paramedics are able to easily locate hospitals that they are not familiar with, and make sure they arrive at their destination.
OakBrook Center is a large outdoor mall located in the northern part of Oak Brook. It is a very popular shopping destination throughout the greater Chicago land area and contains almost 150 unique addresses. Because of the high amount of activity and visitors to this particular area, it more susceptible to emergencies such as; crime, traffic accidents and medical related issues. The high density of addresses in such a small area makes it even more important for emergency responders know exactly which address to go to and which entrance provides the quickest route. It is also important to be able to communicate which general parking area and building they may be responding to. All of this information is provided in the fire pre-plans, but the pre plan does not contain a single map displaying every address in the area. Rather they must locate the address from an address list and refer to a separate individual building site map. This process takes time, which often times means the difference between seconds or minutes to respond to an emergency.
In a constant effort to improve emergency response, the fire department requested that an address map be created for OakBrook Center’s pre-plan. By using existing address data and updating it to the specifics of the fire department, we were able to create a clear address map for the fire pre-plan. Included with the addresses is parking lot names, buildings ID’s, major stores and entrance locations. By using GIS to create this map, not only were we able to make the map very quickly and accurately, but it is now permanently stored in a database that can be quickly updated as addresses and stores change.
The Village of Winnetka, IL hosts numerous special events throughout the year, including a fireworks display during the Fourth of July holiday weekend. These types of events require the involvement and coordination of several village departments, including Public Works and the Police Department, and, often, outside agencies, such as the Winnetka Park District. To help improve the coordination and planning efforts between each group, the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) department developed several map products to assist with transferring event information more efficiently.
There were two maps that were developed for the firework display: one for the Police Department that highlighted the officer posting locations for the event, along with various traffic control policies that were implemented to assist with crowd control, and one for the Public Works Department that displays temporary “no parking” sign placements used to support traffic control efforts. Using these map products provided all those involved with the same, geographically-based template for planning the event, which allowed for a more efficient distribution of resources and transfer of information between agencies during fireworks display.
Every year, the Village of Glenview holds their Fourth of July Celebration, called the Glenview Independence Day Celebration Twilight Show, at the Glenview Park Golf Course. The police and fire departments always are looking for the best ways to spread their resources at events like these. The map shows key locations throughout the event grounds where police or fire could focus on. Firework fallout data was also included to show where to not allow people to be during the firework show. Each police officer carried a laminated copy of this map with them so they could respond to any emergencies quicker by knowing exactly where to go.
During an emergency event, the extent of the area affected and the number of issues occurring as a result of the event are just some of the factors that need to be processed, organized, and reviewed by local government staff to determine the most appropriate course of action. Perhaps the greatest challenge of any emergency response effort is controlling where information is coming from and determining which pieces of information are more critical than others. To help better organize information gathered during a recent storm event, the City of Des Plaines IL used the city’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department to assist with mapping and prioritizing the storm cleanup efforts.
While the initial response to the storm event relied heavily on more traditional forms of data organization and presentation, an effort to streamline the cleanup efforts resulted in GIS being used to develop several mapping products that assisted city staff with visualizing the storm damage. These included a traffic signal outage map, a road closure and downed trees map, and a damaged property map that was developed using information gathered by city building inspectors during the initial damage assessment review. Using these products, city staff was able to better visualize the extent of the damage and, as a result, develop a more effective plan for cleaning up the city.
It often seems that when crimes happen we seem to hear about them on the news. On the contrary, many crimes are reported that don’t attract high media attention. Which ever happens, it is extremely important that the Police Department is aware of the crime and that the activity is recorded for future analytical purposes. After these crimes are recorded what types of analytical operations take place? Are these crimes reviewed individually or compared to others in a group? Does geography play a factor?
The Police Department for the City of Park Ridge, Illinois thought that geography may have been a factor in some of their most recent burglary reports but they needed an easy way to review this information. For this portion of their analysis they decided to take advantage of the resources within the Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Department to help map out the addresses of all the recent burglary activity within the city limits. A list of all burglary location addresses for a month long period was submitted to the GIS Department and then mapped out using the software tools found in application that GIS uses. Not only was the result quick in also displayed that there may be a trend in the type of burglaries because the incidents did indeed occur close in geographic proximity. Once the map was completed it was then published to a PDF so that it could be sent to the appropriate personnel in the Police Department (i.e. detectives) for review and potential field use.
A map that once took an hour to complete manually, now only took fifteen minutes. Additionally, the map was easily distributable which saved time in the long run and made the overall process more efficient.
The Skokie Park District in conjunction with the Village of Skokie hosts the Festival of Cultures. Over the years, it has become a premier ethnic festival in Illinois celebrating the food, music, and sports that define cultures throughout the world. This year will be the 21st for the festival. The Village of Skokie has a high presence during this festival and is working to promote downtown businesses during the event. The idea was to create a flyer to promote the Village’s downtown restaurants. To do this, the Village Manager’s office worked with the Village’s Geographic Information System to gather data and create a map showing all restaurants in the downtown area. The Village will be passing these out at their booth during the festival.
Each year, communities flush their fire hydrants and take note of flow rate, time flushed, and condition of hydrants. For 2011, the City of Lake Forest used GIS to aid in visualizing the locations of hydrants that were found to be in need to attention.
Notes from field work were grouped into subcategories to keep repair types to a manageable amount. From here, special symbology was given to each category to make it stand out from the other hydrants that were displayed on the map. The map was then divided into sections so it could be printed out at a readable scale on 8.5 x 11 paper, and when combined, formed a book that could be used in the field.
Having a visual aid to go with normal maintenance should prove to save time in locating the hydrants and planning of what kind of repairs will be needed. In addition to this, both the water and fire departments can see areas of concern where numerous hydrants may not be functioning properly, which can cause delays in the event that a fire needs to be put out in that area.
Part of the tradition within the United States every year is the celebration of the Fourth of July; many people choose to celebrate this event in their own way. Some may host a party or a picnic while at the local government level it may be a festival or a fireworks display for their residents to attend. Morton Grove has previously used Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to help them map out and plan for such events. This year like previous ones, they have once again taken advantage of the technology to assist them in planning for the July 4th parade.
Because a parade is such a large event that affects traffic flow and public parking, it is important to have a good information source accessible to all departments involved in the planning of this event. For the Public Works Department it is matter of where the barricades and bathrooms are supposed to be located, for the Police Department its monitoring on-street parking so that the streets remain clear as well as managing vehicle traffic so that the parade remains a safe environment. To assure efficient operations a simple map for both of these departments to use as a reference during the event is provided. The more people referring to one resource for their answers the less chance that mistakes will occur and good decisions are made.
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.
Local fire emergency response units are often called to non-residential locations that can contain potential hazards to both the responders and the building occupants. A critical asset to ensuring a successful response is having a drawing of the property, commonly known as a pre-plan, showing vital locations within the building, including the gas shutoff valve, exit points, and the layout of the various rooms. To assist in the development and distribution of these drawing, the City of Des Plaines, IL Fire Department asked the city’s GIS department to provide data for the initial drawing of the plans and a means for viewing the completed plans within a simple mapping environment.
To develop the pre-plan drawings, the Fire Department decided to work with a local community college that had a pre-plan design class in developing a curriculum that integrated the department’s drawings into each assignment. This provided a real world application of the skills being taught in the class and a final product for the department to use in emergency response. To assist the class in the initial design of each plan, the GIS department provided various data layers, including roads and buildings, to the college. These data layers are used as the base data for each drawing, making it easier for the students to add in the critical infrastructure information, such as hydrants and shutoff valve locations.
As a final product, the finished drawings are distributed to the Fire Department through an online interactive mapping site used by city staff. This application is available both in the office to administrative staff and in the field through laptops setup in all the department vehicles. By using the existing GIS system as the basis for the development and distribution of the pre-plans, the city has been able to save time and money on making a critical resource available to the necessary emergency response personnel.
Responding to incidents involving motor vehicle accidents is a fundamental duty of all local government law enforcement agencies. Understanding which areas of a community are more likely to experience higher levels of traffic incidents provides a significant advantage to each department for implementing accident prevention measures that can help to make the community safer.
To help with tracking the location and number of incidents occurring with its community, the Village of Winnetka Police Department asked its Geographic Information System (GIS) Department to start a monthly mapping program using data recorded from officer incident reports generated in the field. Mapping this information provides department staff with a tool for visualizing the total number of incidents, as well as potential problem areas. By providing a monthly map product, the department can track the changes in incident levels throughout the year and be more proactive in their efforts to educate drivers on problem areas and implement preventative measures for reducing the danger of certain intersections.
The Village of Glencoe recently made use of GIS to map fire hydrants and their associated flow rates. Having this information available at a moment’s notice allows fire fighters to quickly locate the nearest source of the water pressure necessary to respond to a fire emergency. These maps were provided to both Dispatch and emergency responders in the field, providing multiple ways to find this information when seconds count.
Because paper maps can get misplaced or damaged in an emergency situation, this information will also be made available in MapOffice™ Advanced as a custom layer. Currently, Dispatch is able to use this tool to zoom in on a specific location and relay the relevant information to responders in the field. Once MapOffice™ Advanced is available on the internet, all emergency personnel will have direct access to this information without the need to rely on printed materials anymore.
As GIS continues to support the mission of each department in the Village, its cost savings potential increases significantly. In this case, Public Works had already collected the flow rate data for inclusion in the database, so police, fire and dispatch were able to pull what they needed in a matter of moments.
Ensuring that all the hydrants in a community are in a proper working condition is vital for the safety of residents within a community. The city ensures hydrants are working properly by flushing them every summer. Previously, the city contracted ME Simpson Co. to flush hydrants each summer. This year they decided to have the Fire Department perform the flushing of hydrants.
The Fire Department understood the technical aspects of flushing hydrants but they also understood the need for developing an organized process for tracking which hydrant flushing. Furthermore, the hydrant features within the GIS have valuable information from previous hydrant flushing programs. It was important that this information was also updated. The Fire Department met with the GIS and requested three products to assist them with implementing the hydrant flushing program. The first product was an Excel sheet listing the number of hydrants per Fire Grid District. The Excel sheet was used to assign hydrants to three teams, one from each station, who would be assigned specific fire grids. Knowing the number of hydrants per Fire District Grid ensured that each team was assigned approximately the same number of hydrants to flush.
The second and third products are used together to tracking flow rate and pressure information for each hydrant. The hydrant information will be updated in an Excel sheet of hydrants, which were extracted from the GIS. There will also be a map showing the hydrants with a unique Id and address, so that correct hydrant is identified and updated in the Excel sheet. By using GIS the Fire Department leverage resource to help them efficiently manage the summer hydrant flushing program. Thus the community will be protected in two ways. They can be confident that all the hydrants in the community are in proper working order and the Fire Department can access the updated hydrant information in the GIS to understand how well the existing hydrants work.
The Village of Oak Brook’s fire department keeps a comprehensive map of the village which incorporates all features they deem necessary for fire emergency response and planning. Included in this map are things such as fire hydrants, high pressure gas lines, highway mile markers, and many other features that assist them while responding to emergency situations. The most recent feature that they have requested is a full layout of all three golf courses in the village. This is a necessary element on the map because while responding to calls on a golf course people often refer to which hole they are on, or the fire department may need to know where the nearest high pressure water source is in the event of a fire. Having set layouts and plans for possible emergencies is what allows the fire department to do their job quickly and effectively.
The image displayed is of Butterfield Country Club, which is not incorporated in the village. Because of their overall lack of knowledge and layout of the course, the fire department requested that all features, especially hole locations and high pressure water sources be mapped. By using aerial photography and having a couple of meetings with the golf course superintendent, I was able to create all of the features seen in the image from scratch. The fire department is now able to quickly reference where every hole is located, what obstacles may be in their way, and where to connect their hoses in the event of a fire. This is all being done with the goal of eventually incorporating this data into our interactive mapping service, MapOffice™ Advanced, so that they will have interactive access to this data while in their rigs on location.
Last year the GIS Consoritum (GISC) conducted a survey of the member Fire Departments. Among the topics was the use of wireless in the field along with the type of records management systems used. The goal was to set the vision for future MapOffice™ Advanced development to assure its continued support of Public Safety. The results from the survey reinforce the notion that more and more local governments are turning to technology to improve the efficiency of business processes. More than half (63%) of Fire Departments covering GISC communities have wireless in the field right now with an additional 3 communities providing wireless in the field within the next two years. That said by 2013, 80% of GISC members will have access to MapOffice™ Advanced in the field to use for emergency response.
As a result of the survey the GISC will be researching:
- Providing Mobile Data Viewer (MDV™) functionality in MapOffice™ Advanced
- Within two (2) years, more than 80% of departments will be supporting wireless in the field
- Integrating Firehouse in MapOffice™ Advanced
- Since Firehouse™ is the predominately used software (75%) for pre-plan and records management, integration with MapOffice™ Advanced is critical.
- Establishing MapOffice™ Advanced functionality if wireless connection is not available/down Based on the consortium-wide push towards wireless, having a backup version of MapOffice™ Advanced available when wireless is down will be essential.
The GISC appreciates the time that the Fire Departments took out of their busy schedules to answer this survey.
The Village of Skokie’s state of the art Police Department houses the Village’s Emergency Operations Center (EOC). This center is utilized as a meeting destination for decision makers during an emergency event. The EOC is supported by generators during power outages and serve as a command center. Features of this center include two projectors with the ability to project eight inputs, power/data connections in the floor, and a partition that can split the room. Two kitchens, a supply room with cubbies for each department, and an adjoining conference room are just some of the additional amenities at the EOC.
In preparation for emergencies, the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Department has been working extensively with the Village’s Public Safety Consortium providing maps and spatial analysis. A street map of Skokie and the surrounding municipalities, as well as a damage assessment grid map were provided to be laminated and used during an emergency. The ability to connect to MapOffice and other GIS programs has been verified and tested in preparation for an EOC activation.
The Village of Oak Brook’s community development department handles a variety of matters, one of which includes permitting for pyrotechnics. For this particular project, community development had a resident come in and request a permit for a private fireworks display on his property. In order for the permit to be granted, community development needed to figure out whether or not this resident’s property met the requirements set by the ordinance dealing with pyrotechnics. The ordinance states that no pyrotechnics can be set off within a distance of 21 feet of a building or neighboring property line, for every 1/5 inch of projectile barrel size. For this particular display, the required perimeter was 105’ from all buildings.
The image displayed shows the resident’s property, along with all restricted and unrestricted areas on his property. The analysis had to include 105’ perimeters around the main building, which was his house, around the free-standing shed on the northwest portion of the property, and inside of his entire property line. By applying a 105’ buffer around both of these buildings and inside the property line, it was determined that there was a small portion of land on the central north end of his property that met all requirements set by the ordinance. This map and analysis helped community development by giving an accurate location for the fireworks display, while adhering to the requirements set forth by the ordinance.
The Oak Brook Fire Department, like most other fire departments, regularly trains their staff in a variety of categories aside from EMS and fighting fires. One area that they test on a regular basis is every firefighter’s ability to remember every street name and location within each of the 13 fire districts. Prior to GIS assisting them in the test creation, they had used hand drawn maps that were not easy to read, and were not always spatially accurate. As a result the training officer asked the GIS specialist to create a series of maps to test the firefighters with.
The image displayed is an example page from the map book that was created for the test. The map book is made up of 13 pages, one page for each district. There was a master copy made which displays every street and street name within the district. And then the test was created by substituting the street name with a numeric value. Each firefighter will have a document listing all of the numbers in each district, and they will need to reference the map with numeric street names to complete the test. The test is then graded based off of the master copy which displays all actual street names. Although this project did not involve intensive analysis, it allows the fire department to maximize its effectiveness by completing an essential and easy to read test.
Emergency planning is a part of life. You have probably prepared for emergencies and not even realized it. It could be stocking up on extra pantry items before a blizzard or filling out an emergency contact form at your place of employment or child’s school. Though these are great examples of emergency preparedness, municipal government needs to reach much deeper. Preparing a home for an emergency is different than preparing 25,000 homes, businesses and schools for an array of natural and human disasters.
The Village of Skokie’s Fire Prevention Bureau is working with area schools to address a student relocation plan in case of an emergency. The Geographic Information System (GIS) department has been asked to assist in building routes to these relocation areas. By using routing, the Village’s Police and Fire Departments will know how both private and public schools transit to these temporary locations. The importance of the route is immense considering public safety could be inundated with calls and stretched thin. This way all parties know what the school’s plan is for an emergency.
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.
Like many other Fire Departments, the City of Highland Park Fire Department finds itself having to maintain current level of converage with less resources. Determining where to effectively deploy these resources is an important part of maintaining the expected service level. The Fire Department approached the GIS Office about using GIS to evaluate where to locate Department resources and it was decided to create two series of map products.
The first map product used ESRI’s ArcView with the Network Analysis Extension to create maps showing response times in one minute increments from each station to the edge of the community. The response time routes follow the road network and include impediments such as one way streets and stop signs. The goal of these maps was to judge the impact on response times if one of the stations were closed.
The second set of maps displayed Fire Department response data for a period of one year. Various maps were created and categorized by type and or time. These maps helped identify hot spots of Fire Department responses. The goal of these maps was to analyze areas where the Fire Department mostly frequently responded, so that resources could be effectively deployed to respond to these areas in a timely manor.
By using GIS the Fire Department had a powerful tool to assist with adapting to a new reality. They gained the confidence to make difficult choices because they have the information to judge the impact of these decisions. Thus they will be able to maintain their current service level using fewer resources.
On a monthly basis, the Village of Glenview’s Fire Department uses GIS and New World Systems to record and then execute queries for incident reporting (or NFIRS data) which is then submitted to the State. NFIRS or National Fire Incident Reporting System is a voluntary information system initiated and supported by the United States Fire Administration used for evaluating the nature and scope of the fire problem in the U.S. The importance or advantages for having these abilities are; identifying trends in the number of calls, the type of calls made, the origin of calls and then using this information to potentially plan a station relocation or to possibly justify the fire departments budget for purchasing new equipment and vehicles.
If it were not for GIS and New World Systems supplementing and essentially standardizing this for Glenview then record keeping and mapping would be less effective and lack any cost savings.
The Village of Glencoe has an existing Sign Inventory Program that has been completed for the entire Village. The inventory program was completed years ago and to ensure the Village of Glencoe meets new future Federal Sign Regulations the GIS Department has began the process to make the existing inventory usable for staff review.
A major focus of this process was to convert all existing sign related databases into a format that was usable for mapping. Once this process was completed, the GIS Department was able to use our mapping software to create maps of all the signs located within the Village of Glencoe. These maps will be used in the planning phase to determine existing inventory and assist the Village on determining the scope of reviewing the current inventory. Future products will include mapping products in a usable format for Field Crews to conduct field verification processes.
The final goal of the program will help ensure Glencoe is meeting new Federal Sign Regulations and to ensure all existing data is used in the most efficient manner.
The City includes a Storm Water Fee with every water bill. The purpose of this fee is to collect money for the maintenance of City Owned storm sewers. The current fee is based solely on the building footprint. Over time it has become apparent that this method is not adequate as it does not include all impervious surfaces. For example a property with a small building and a large parking lot is only charged for a small portion of the storm water that runs off the property and into the city storm sewers.
Therefore it was decided to include Parking lots, sidewalks, and private roads, along with the buildings to ensure that property owners were assessed in a more equitable manner. It also had the benefit of increasing the amount of money collected from Storm Water Utility Fees without increasing the fees themselves.
The Finance Department approached the GIS Office to create imperious values for each parcel and tie them to utility billing accounts. The GIS office created values by merging all impervious features with parcel features. Addresses were used to tie the Utility Billing Accounts with each parcel associated with the utility billing account. Finally a table was created showing the new impervious values with existing impervious values.
The comparison table was created to show how much of the fees would increase if all impervious areas are included. It was also used as a check to verify the accuracy of the GIS data. At this time the new values are not being used, but they are planned to be added by January 2011. By using GIS the city quickly created impervious values for each utility billing account and ensure that storm water fees would be assessed in a fairer manner.
Public safety response is often not limited to the boundaries of a municipality and can include providing assistance to neighboring communities or direct response to unincorporated properties. This response can also extend to interstate systems that border a municipality, as is the case with the City of Des Plaines Fire Department.
Since mile markers are the only way for the department to identify the location of an emergency call along the interstates, it was critical for all first responders to be aware of the location and mileage associated with new mile markers determined by the Illinois Tollway Authority. Using assistance from the city’s GIS (Geographic Information System) staff, the Fire Department developed a series of maps displaying the new mile marker locations, both independently along the interstate and in relation to other critical fire response components, such as hydrants. Using the maps as a guide, the department now has a series of spatial tools for locating and responding effectively to an emergency call along the city’s bordering interstates.
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 Lincolnwood, in an effort to reduce vehicular accidents and provide safer driving conditions within the Village, collected data for a line of sight ordinance. This ordinance targets areas where landscaping blocks the view of drivers turning to and from arterial roadways to residential streets. In order to accomplish this, GIS was used to provide the total number of intersections and to map data previously collected data such as intersections with a line of sight conflict as well as vehicular accidents at these locations. Data was gathered directly from Public Works staff as well as from the Village’s Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD). GIS was then able to summarize this information quickly and accurately. This work assisted community staff members in the writing and passing of a Village ordinance to restrict the amount of obstructions.
During an emergency event, knowing how a community is being impacted as a whole can be just as important as responding to an individual emergency call. Having an overall view of the event can provide emergency response personnel with a better idea of how wide-spread the problems are and reveal potential patterns that can lead to better management of the response efforts. To help maximize its ability to respond to a community-level emergency, the Village of Winnetka GIS department developed a process for showing staff-generated emergency information in a real-time mapping environment.
The environment for displaying the emergency event data generated by community staff is the GIS Consortium MapOffice™ Advanced mapping application, so the first step in the development process was to determine how the information would be stored and transferred from the input location to the map. The medium for bridging this gap is a Microsoft SQL database environment, which is used by MapOffice™ Advanced to display data and allows for multiple user inputs at one time. Using a Microsoft Access form as the point for data input, the staff member can enter emergency call information and, through a programming script developed by GIS department staff, have the information processed for input into the mapping application. Once processed, the event locations can be displayed by the application’s end users, providing them with a real-time view of what is occurring in the Village.
Viewing a community-level, real-time emergency event in an interactive spatial environment provides the potential for the Village of Winnetka to better plan for response situations and can assist Village staff in developing and executing better polices for future resource and manpower distribution.
Municipality commonly will invest in or be provided with a piece of software that they can use to meet the demands of their daily tasks. Although this is helpful in many cases, there is often a level of data accuracy and data quality - that may suffer labeling some of this software as one to be used with caution. Recently the Village of Morton Grove Fire Department was provided with a great piece of software from their regional dispatch center that had many of the functions necessary to complete the day to day functions but lacked one major component, reliable geographic data.
Without reliable geographic data one may be subject to responding to an incorrect location in a dire time of need. With that being said, it was imperative for the Morton Grove Fire Department to enlist the services of the Geographic Information System (GIS) Department in order to upgrade this new software with the data that GIS edits every day. Luckily technology has come a long way allowing the two pieces of software to talk to each other and thus integrate the existing fire response software with accurate GIS data. This capability will ensure that data can continually be supplied locally by GIS without having to incur the costs that may be charged by the external software company, a win-win for the village as a whole.
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 Village of Glencoe Public Safety Department records all response events related to Public Safety Dispatch within their Computer Aided Dispatch System. It is important to not only record all events that occur within the Village but to also review and analyze the data for optimum response time performance. One key and very important aspect of analyzing the data involves mapping the data. Mapping is can be used to help visualize and identify trends within the response records.
The Public Safety Department and the Village of Glencoe GIS Department both work together to complete the mapping task based on the collected response records. Key records are categorized, reviewed, and mapped based on recorded incident and response events. The events are broken down further to subcategories which included Code One Responses, all types of reported incidents from the dispatch system, and then a break down for total number of incidents and responses by reporting districts. Once the data has is prepared the mapping is completed using available GIS tools to help automate the process and provided mapping results which then can be used by the Public Safety Department to assist in understanding what is occurring within their dispatch responsibility area.
This image is a small example of the products that are produced when analyzing the Computer Aided Dispatch data.
The Village of Skokielinois Fire Department provides services to over 63,000 residents and is part of a Mutual Aid Agreement with surrounding communities. In order to provide the best possible service, Skokie’s Fire vehicles need to be equipped with detailed street maps outlining not only its own community, but the surrounding communities as well. For instance, if surrounding communities have low bridge clearances, one way streets, or other obstacles, the Village needs to know in order to proceed to the call safely and efficiently. The Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS ) provides this street map.
Coinciding with the street map, inset maps of highly populated areas are provided detailing hydrant locations, addresses and even unit numbers of large condominiums and apartment complexes. Parking lot layouts, curbs, and medians are also outlined to supply the most information to the Fire Department so more educated decisions can be made.
About every ten years a Fire Department conducts a review of their services in order to increase their chances of getting a better Insurance Services Organization (ISO) rating; the better a rating the Fire Department receives, the more money a commercial property will save on their fire insurance. In order to prepare for this evaluation, The Village of Morton Grove Fire Department is using all the techniques they can find to boost their chances of a better overall rating. A technology aid that was not around the last time they conducted an ISO evaluation was the Geographic Information System or better known as GIS.
Although GIS is not the only contributor to this in-depth evaluation process, it definitely allows the Fire Department to take advantage of their in-house GIS staff to prepare maps and data at a lower cost. These maps and data outputs will supply the ISO reviewer with the information that they need in order to accurately judge the type of services the Morton Grove Fire Department supplies and should in help in all efforts to better the village’s ISO rating. In addition, should any other questions arise during the review process; the GIS will be a great place to start when trying to gather quick and accurate information; thus proving the usefulness of the Geographic Information System’s ability to help when needed and better yet, save people some money.
Lake Forest will have access to the web version of MapOffice™ beginning June 1st. The month of May was spent preparing the base data needed to get MapOffice™ up and running, which involved loading previous GIS data into the GIS Consortium standardized database.
MapOffice™ will provide staff and residents with information for each parcel and address in the city, which ranges from school districts and voting information to garbage pick up days. A link to the Lake County Assessor’s website for each individual address is also provided to gain further information regarding building and property dimensions, assessed value, and sales history. Tools will be available to the user to provide further analysis if needed, such as measuring and links to both Google Street View and Bing Maps Bird’s Eye View.
Information commonly used by staff to assist residents will now all be available in one place, increasing efficiency, as well as providing basic information to residents who may have otherwise had to call in to ask about in the past. Work continues on data creation for MapOffice™ Advanced, which is scheduled to be available on the City intranet by mid-June.
The Village of Norridge has begun mapping out traffic accident information in an effort to try and limit the amount of accidents in high traffic areas and understand why accidents occur in low traffic areas. A map was created using data provided by the police department detailing the locations of traffic accidents by month. Accident locations were added to the map and categorized by type (property damage, personal injury, village property, fatality). Eventually, as data from previous months is added to the database, patterns will begin to emerge.
By mapping the location of each accident from month to month, patterns can begin to emerge and provide the police department and engineering with a visual representation of the accidents. The locations can then be analyzed to see if there is as abnormal amount of accidents in low traffic areas. The village engineering department can then analyze these locations against village data, such as the sign inventory, to determine if there is a specific cause for those accidents. By using GIS to map out traffic accident locations, the Village of Norridge can have a better understanding on where the accidents occur in the village and give them a first step in determining why they are happening.
A recent development in the Glenview Geographic Information System (GIS) has been the creation of the firework fallout locations for the Fire Department. The information created includes the site locations and the fallout buffers for each location. Fallouts are determined by the size of the shell, and a one inch shell has a radius or fallout of 70 feet.
The Fallout map is available for the Fire Department and or all Village staff at any time through GIS or the PDF map folder which is located in the all employee accessible directory. This data provides an excellent resource for quickly referencing site locations and assisting with or containing any potential fallout related fires or problems.
With the building of a new village hall and an updated police station, the Village of Wheeling took the opportunity to put in a new sprinkler system for the outdoor areas of both buildings. The sprinkler system consists of roughly 600 sprinkler heads varying in size, flow, and type tied into a computer system. The Village of Wheeling requested that a map be created showing the location of all the features within the system overlaid on aerial imagery.
To get accurate locations of all the sprinkler heads, a village engineer went out and used a GPS unit to collect all the location information. The points were then loaded into GIS and mapped out on top of the village’s aerial imagery. Using engineering drawings, attributes and line work were added to the map to complete the entire system. Finally, sprinkler zones were added using notes provided by public works and building maintenance crews.
The final product displays the entire sprinkler system on top of the aerial imagery so that maintenance crews can locate any part of the system. By adding the map into the village’s online mapping program, maintenance crews can select a sprinkler and see all the attributes for that specific feature. This allows them to easily make repairs and replacements. Because the computer tied into the system references errors by zone, the zone numbers were added to the system allowing maintenance crews to see exactly where a specific error is located and what other parts of the system are going to be affected. By adding the sprinkler system into GIS, the maintenance crews are able to get a clear look at the system and then make quick and informative decisions on any maintenance or issues.
As a new member of the GIS Consortium, the top priority in Lake Forest has been getting data ready for New World. New World used in some of the other Consortium communities, is a CAD software that uses GIS to map out the location of where calls are coming from.
Lake Forest is responsible for dispatching calls for both Police and Fire for the city, as well as the surrounding communities of Highwood for Police and Lake Bluff and Knollwood for Fire. Since there were many detailed paper maps on hand, having this data available at the dispatchers’ fingertips will greatly improve efficiency and response time. There will also be a version of New World running on Toughbook laptops that will be in the emergency vehicles to assist in giving address locations.
Much of the data being used for this implementation was updated and standardized before it was ready to be loaded onto the test server. Once the data is running live, edits will be carried out by Specialists and can be loaded into the active map to keep updates being entered as soon as they come in.
In preparing the data for the New World project, we now have many of the key layers needed for the GISC data conversion out of the way, and this will aid in our progress of delivering MapOffice™ to Lake Forest employees as soon as possible.
The Tyler Edens application is an important financial and permit enterprise system that allows the city easily track finances and permit status. The application will only function efficiently if it has good base information such as zoning districts, addresses, and owner information. This information is readily available but requires the tools within the GIS to combine this information into one table. The GIS tools also clean up the County provided assessor owner information to assure owners within the city of Highland Park has correct street names. The GIS office annually creates a flattened import file that is used to keep the Edens data current.
A second role of the GIS is providing the layers for the interactive map within Edens. This map shows parcels, buildings, and utilities. By using the map, users scan interactively select properties and see the related records for each property. This makes workflows more efficient as users do not need to manually search by addresses.
A final support process of the GIS is creating the impervious values for each property. The impervious areas used to asses a storm water fee for water billing customers. Without GIS, the Edens application would not contain much of the valuable information it now contains and would create more frustration for users trying to use the application.
The Village of Winnetka hosts numerous special events over the course of a year and, for each event, the Police and Public Works departments are involved in providing operational support. These events range from parades to festivals and require a wide-range of supportive actions. These actions are assigned via an event orders sheet provided to each department that describes the extent of the event and where various elements of the event are occurring. However, in the order sheet format, it can be difficult for personnel to get an overall view of the event’s total operations. To assist with providing this comprehensive view for the Village’s Memorial Day parade, the GIS Department was asked to develop a mapping product that would help assigned personnel to be better informed about the overall event orders.
The Memorial Day parade is an annual event that requires a variety of special operational orders to ensure residents are safe and enjoy the event proceedings. To assist with the execution of these orders, the GIS Department was provided with a copy of the event order sheet and asked to create a map showing the location of several key components of the parade. These included officer posting locations, parking restriction areas, severe weather shelters, and the parade staging area. Viewing this information spatially allows each officer and public works crew member to gain a better understanding of the scope of the event and provides a visual tool to assist with executing the operational orders sheet. While not a replacement for the written orders, the Memorial Day map acts as a supplemental tool for supporting Village departmental actions before and during the parade.
Providing a visual format for viewing a special event’s operations provides a quick reference tool for viewing the overall event setup. This broad perspective supplies more information to assigned Village personnel, helping them to make more informed and efficient decisions.
The Village of Glenview Inspectional Services executes numerous inspections on a daily basis including all businesses and multi-story non-residential buildings for Fire inspections. Before the advent of Geography Information Systems and MUNIS, Fire inspectors used CityView software (address database) for their daily inspections.
Now, they are able to use MUNIS (for issuing and inventorying permits) and GIS analysis and map design (for evenly distributing all addresses into 4 inspection zones) on their laptops. This not only increases productivity (a higher number of inspected properties in a given day due to evenly distributing addresses into each zone) it also demonstrates the power of integration\central repository for two products (MUNIS and GIS), which saves even more time.
MGP Inc. through it's relationship with the GIS Consortium has in-depth experience building GIS data for New World Systems (NWS) implementations. GIS data has been built for the following municipalities by MGP; Glenview, Deerfield, Highland Park, Lincolnwood, Winnetka, Wilmette*, Kenilworth*, Grays Lake* and Bannockburn.* The communities with a "*" are not members of the GIS Consortium.
The building of NWS data is another example of how collaboration has reduced costs for GISC members using NWS for emergency dispatch. With each implementation the time spent preparing the data and assuring the accuracy of conversion from the GISC model to the NWS model improves. Conversion scripts and best practices have been developed and are shared throughout the GISC. GIS data that supports New World’s GIS mapping system has been built and converted with repeated and predicable success. NWS has recognized the GISC for its ability to manage and create quality GIS data to be used in their systems.
Address data is the backbone of the municipal government. Services, including refuse pickup and police and fire response, and taxes depend on current and accurate addressing. The Village of Skokie Community Development Department and Geographic Information System (GIS) staff have realized the importance of consolidating address databases in the recent months. A major factor in this decision was the difference in address data for a recent mass mailing.
Working together, the two departments have come up with new business processes to edit and create addresses in GIS. While this will save time and money in the long run, there has been a large time commitment in data entry and will have more time committed to training Community Development staff in the future.
This is just one example of how GIS can be leveraged. Instead of multiple departments tracking the same data, a central repository of data (GIS) can be viewed throughout the organization. By editing the data in one location, it limits errors and reduces the overall time needed to maintain the data. IT just makes sense.
During an emergency event, the type of event, the extent of the area affected, and the number of issues occurring as a result of the event are just some of the factors that need to be processed, organized, and reviewed by local government staff to determine the most appropriate course of action. Perhaps the greatest challenge of any emergency response is controlling where information is coming from and which pieces of information are more critical than others. Using GIS (Geographic Information System) as a tool in all stages of the emergency management process brings a spatial component to the planning and implementation of an action plan, helping to visualize all relevant information for a more efficient and successful community response.
As with other tools used to assist during an emergency response, a GIS system will only produce a product as good as the information it’s provided. Therefore, while visualizing things such as flooded intersections or downed power line locations is an advantage of using GIS, keeping the information in the system current is critical to ensuring that advantage is maintained. Integrating a geographic component into the overall emergency operations plan for a community can help to ensure that any status updates to an incident are inputted into the GIS system and, thereby, reflected in any mapping products that are produced.
Adding spatial context to an emergency event, and having the ability to track how the event is changing and affecting the community residents, is a powerful tool for local government in determining how to respond. It also provides a means for information provided from the field to be visually filtered to allow critical information to be easily processed and prioritized. Having a robust GIS system in place to assist with the information management of an emergency event improves the effectiveness of the local government staff and provides a vital tool for sharing critical information across all departments.
The City of Park Ridge has recently invested in a new software application that enhances its ability to provide emergency alerts to its residents. The application, going by the name Everbridge Aware for Citizen Alerts, is a notification sytem that will call people on their phone and inform that about emregencies as well as other helpful non-emergency updates. The data in the system is supplied to the city by willful residents who fill out their information via the city’s website. Residents will give at least one phone number but have the option to supply a cell phone number, a business phone number or even an e-mail address. When an emergency or important event comes up, the system will send a message to the first number that a resident provided and wait for a confirmation of receipt from that resident. If the system does not receive a confirmation from the resident it will try the next method of choice that was outlined by the resident during the application process whether it be another phone number, text message or e-mail.
The next process that the city is investigating is to incorporate local Geographical Infromation Systems (GIS) data into the Everbridge application for more specific uses. Since the Everbridge application already includes a GIS mapping function, it only seems logical to test the water by updating it with data that was created by the city’s GIS Department. The first data layer that is set to be tested is a fire hydrant flushing zone layer. This data layer will supply the Fire Department with the ability to select all residences located within any fire hydrant zone and notify them that there will be hydrant flushing going on in their area soon. If successful, it will serve as a benchmark for the future of using GIS layers within the citizen alert system, thus demonstrating the versatility of GIS data.
One can easily imagine how powerful a system like this could be in getting important information to the public. And with the ability to intergrate local and accurate GIS data, the system can only act as a better service for the residents of Park Ridge.
During an emergency event, the type of event, the extent of the area affected, and the number of issues occurring as a result of the event are just some of the factors that need to be processed, organized, and reviewed by local government staff to determine the most appropriate course of action. Perhaps the greatest challenge of any emergency response is controlling where information is coming from and which pieces of information are more critical than others. Using GIS (Geographic Information System) as a tool in all stages of the emergency management process brings a spatial component to the planning and implementation of an action plan, helping to visualize all relevant information for a more efficient and successful community response.
As with other tools used to assist during an emergency response, a GIS system will only produce a product as good as the information it’s provided. Therefore, while visualizing things such as flooded intersections or downed power line locations is an advantage of using GIS, keeping the information in the system current is critical to ensuring that advantage is maintained. Integrating a geographic component into the overall emergency operations plan for a community can help to ensure that any status updates to an incident are inputted into the GIS system and, thereby, reflected in any mapping products that are produced.
Adding spatial context to an emergency event, and having the ability to track how the event is changing and affecting the community residents, is a powerful tool for local government in determining how to respond. It also provides a means for information provided from the field to be visually filtered to allow critical information to be easily processed and prioritized. Having a robust GIS system in place to assist with the information management of an emergency event improves the effectiveness of the local government staff and provides a vital tool for sharing critical information across all departments.
Although it is possible to put a number on the purchase price of a device that notifies people of an emergency, giving people amble time to reach safety is priceless. Like all Public Safety personnel who pride themselves in the art of providing a safe place for their residents to live, the Village of Morton Grove Fire Department is no different. They continue to look for new ways to ensure that they know their town and they know what their residents need.
One item that makes this list of needs is the ever-important emergency siren. Emergency sirens act as noisemakers that have the ability to be heard for up to almost a mile in distance. If these devices are properly located throughout a municipality, they can offer enough noise to warn all residents of an oncoming emergency. The question is “How do you know where to position these sirens so that they can be heard village-wide.” That is a question that the Morton Grove Fire Department knew might be easily answered by the help of Geographic Information System (GIS) Department.
Considering that the Fire Department already knew where their existing siren locations were located they could start the analysis right then and there. By using a simple tool found within GIS, a process known as a “Buffer” would be applied to existing siren location in order to generate a fixed-distance ring around the existing structure. This distance would depict the range in which the siren manufacturer indicated humans could hear the siren noise. Although the emergency siren manufacturer indicated that the siren could be heard from 5,000 feet away the Morton Grove Fire Department decided to play it safe and run the “Buffer” at a distance of 4,000 feet instead. This way they could add a cushion of ensured safety to their analysis.
Once the first buffer was run it was then up to the Fire Department to locate village owned land that they could use in order to install as many new emergency sirens as it would take to cover the entire municipality. Each time they were granted the right to use a piece of land they would submit the location to the GIS Department to run an additional buffer. Furthermore, they continued to analyze what locations might work as which location might not work in order to reach their goal of blanketing the entire community with an emergency siren call during a time of need.
After many alterations between existing and proposed locations, the Fire Department has narrowed down the placement search to five proposed sites and one existing location. These locations and their respective buffers have been placed on map and submitted to the Fire Department for their internal use. All in all, a once daunting task has now been made easier by the use of GIS.
Emergencies happen when we least expect them which is why it is so important to be prepared. Situations arise in communities that, with the right preparations, can be easily contained and remedied. The Village of Skokie has a Geographic Information System (GIS) that incorporates mapping and analysis to better understand and prepare for emergencies.
Working with the Village’s Fire Chief, who heads the emergency management team, the GIS Specialist was able to create zones for damage assessments to be used in the field after a disaster takes place. This product was initially used during a training exercise in which a simulated tornado made its way through the village. Search grids help the field crew by limiting and defining their area to search. A map of the specific grid is given to the field worker who then searches and documents locations of damage and other obstructions. The final damage assessment is sent back to the emergency operations center to be reviewed.
GIS has given the emergency management team another angle in preparing for emergencies. Mapping software has been installed on laptops for mobile use and large poster size maps were printed for visual aides. Preparation is crucial to sustaining and overcoming any emergency and GIS provides an extra tool to help that process.
Public Safety plays a crucial role in the day to day activities of Village of Lincolnshire. The Village of Lincolnshire Police Department believes that their daily activities help support a safe and vibrant community. A crucial operational aspect of the Police Department is conducted 24 hours, 7 days a week, all year long is Dispatch. The Dispatch Department and the highly trained officers are responsible for receiving and dispatching appropriate resources for all emergency and non emergency activities in the Village. The major focus of their operation is to respond to all calls placed to 911, dispatch resources, and relay information to officers in the field. Mapping is a major factor in this operation from locating the call in dispatch and to reporting location information to the officers in the field. Without highly accurate, detailed, and up to date mapping data would create a major challenge in the emergency response cycle.
The Dispatch Department uses a very advanced Computer Aided Dispatch System or (CAD). This system handles all aspects of emergency dispatch from the initial call to proper resource dispatch. The system also performs very important incident reporting activities which the Police Department uses to review and analyze their activities. The common component in all of these functions is location and mapping.
The Village of Lincolnshire GIS department works both with the Police Department and their CAD vendor to load and update all mapping the data needed to support the system. This includes providing highly accurate mapping data developed by the Village of Lincolnshire to the CAD vendor for loading into their system. The provided mapping data includes extremely accurate street centerline files, address point locations, all district and beat layers, common places layer, and highly detailed aerial imagery. This mapping data is also maintained by the Village of Lincolnshire and is updated by the GIS Department reducing the overall cost of not relying on a third party vendor and lesser quality of data. This also ensures the mapping layers are as current as possible and makes it possible to update and refresh changes when needed with minimal effort.
In summary, every phone call to dispatch uses some form of the provided data to record and assist Dispatch and Officers with the most up to date and current information. The data is also indirectly consumed by the public in large including Village residents because they benefit in a highly efficient and accurate system when consuming E911 services.
Emergencies happen when we least expect them which is why it is so important to be prepared. Situations arise in communities that, with the right preparations, can be easily contained and remedied. The Village of Lincolnwood has a Geographic Information System (GIS) that incorporates mapping and analysis to better understand and prepare for emergencies.
Working with the Village’s Fire Chief, who heads the emergency management team, the GIS Specialist was able begin the process of incorporating the GIS for use in emergency situations. This process began with the installation of software and continues with training the individuals on the Emergency Management Team in the technology. Not only does the Village have to train employees in the use of GIS software, but also has to prepare paper maps incase power and printing are disabled during the emergency.
GIS has given the emergency management team another angle in preparing for emergencies. Mapping software has been installed on multiple workstations and large poster size maps were printed for visual aides. Preparation is crucial to sustaining and overcoming any emergency and GIS provides an extra tool to help that process.
Police, Fire, and EMS dispatch plays a very important and crucial role for any State, County, City, or Village; and any Dispatcher, Police officer, Firemen, or EMT will tell you that timing and accurate information is everything. The Village of Glenview utilizes Geography Information Systems (GIS) by integrating GIS data into their New World Systems (software mapping applications) for accurate computer aided dispatch. GIS and NWS give dispatchers the ability to supply all Police, Fire, and EMS with the most up to date address locations.
Before GIS; Police, Fire, EMS, and Dispatch had to rely heavily on paper maps (or no maps at all) which were not 100% accurate and in some cases hand drawn. Now, by using the power of Geography Information Systems and New World Systems Police Officers, Firemen, EMT, and Dispatchers are able to respond to calls much faster and more effectively, which in return saves time (it would take to loop up the address) and money (gas and loss productivity.)
In conclusion, as States, Counties, Cities\Villages grow so does the demand for Police, Fire, and EMS along with the demand for accurate data and mapping. Not only does GIS allow for this to happen, it can also assist with decision making on critical cost saving issues.
Public Safety plays a crucial role in the day to day activities of Village of Glencoe. The Village of Glencoe Public Safety Department believes that their daily activities help support a safe and vibrant community. A crucial operational aspect of the Public Safety Department is conducted 24 hours, 7 days a week, all year long is Dispatch. The Dispatch Department and the highly trained officers are responsible for receiving and dispatching appropriate resources for all emergency and non emergency activities in the Village. The major focus of their operation is to respond to all calls placed to 911, dispatch resources, and relay information to officers in the field. Mapping is a major factor in this operation from locating the call in dispatch and to reporting location information to the officers in the field. Without highly accurate, detailed, and up to date mapping data would create a major challenge in the emergency response cycle.
The Dispatch Department uses a very advanced Computer Aided Dispatch System or (CAD). This system handles all aspects of emergency dispatch from the initial call to proper resource dispatch. The system also performs very important incident reporting activities which the Police Department uses to review and analyze their activities. The common component in all of these functions is location and mapping.
The Village of Glencoe GIS department works both with the Public Safety Department and their CAD vendor to load and update all mapping the data needed to support the system. This includes providing highly accurate mapping data developed by the Village of Glencoe to the CAD vendor for loading into their system. The provided mapping data includes extremely accurate street centerline files, address point locations, all district and beat layers, common places layer, and highly detailed aerial imagery. This mapping data is also maintained by the Village of Glencoe and is updated by the GIS Department reducing the overall cost of not relying on a third party vendor and lesser quality of data. This also ensures the mapping layers are as current as possible and makes it possible to update and refresh changes when needed with minimal effort.
In summary, every phone call to dispatch uses some form of the provided data to record and assist Dispatch and Officers with the most up to date and current information. The data is also indirectly consumed by the public in large including Village residents because they benefit in a highly efficient and accurate system when consuming E911 services.
Public Safety plays a crucial role in the day to day activities of Village of Deerfield. The Village of Deerfield Police Department believes that their daily activities help support a safe and vibrant community. A crucial operational aspect of the Police Department is conducted 24 hours, 7 days a week, all year long is Dispatch. The Dispatch Department and the highly trained officers are responsible for receiving and dispatching appropriate resources for all emergency and non emergency activities in the Village. The major focus of their operation is to respond to all calls placed to 911, dispatch resources, and relay information to officers in the field. Mapping is a major factor in this operation from locating the call in dispatch and to reporting location information to the officers in the field. Without highly accurate, detailed, and up to date mapping data would create a major challenge in the emergency response cycle.
The Dispatch Department uses a very advanced Computer Aided Dispatch System or (CAD). This system handles all aspects of emergency dispatch from the initial call to proper resource dispatch. The system also performs very important incident reporting activities which the Police Department uses to review and analyze their activities. The common component in all of these functions is location and mapping.
The Village of Deerfield GIS department works both with the Police Department and their CAD vendor to load and update all mapping the data needed to support the system. This includes providing highly accurate mapping data developed by the Village of Deerfield to the CAD vendor for loading into their system. The provided mapping data includes extremely accurate street centerline files, address point locations, all district and beat layers, common places layer, and highly detailed aerial imagery. This mapping data is also maintained by the Village of Deerfield and is updated by the GIS Department reducing the overall cost of not relying on a third party vendor and lesser quality of data. This also ensures the mapping layers are as current as possible and makes it possible to update and refresh changes when needed with minimal effort.
In summary, every phone call to dispatch uses some form of the provided data to record and assist Dispatch and Officers with the most up to date and current information. The data is also indirectly consumed by the public in large including Village residents because they benefit in a highly efficient and accurate system when consuming E911 services.
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.
The safety and maintenance of train gates is an issue all communities with rail lines crossing through their borders must deal with. For many, the image of train gate lights flashing causes feelings of impatience, but, in most cases, the wait for a train only lasts a few minutes or so. However, train gates can malfunction, which can cause significant traffic congestion and train delays. Recently, the City of Des Plaines engineering department decided to analyze train gate malfunction and delayed train information gathered from January 1st- June 30th of 2009 at the city’s thirty-two at-grade train crossings. In doing so, the department wanted to determine if there is a problem with the city’s rail system that requires further investigation.
The source of the information used in this analysis came from calls made to the city’s police department from drivers who were stuck at a malfunctioning gate or were blocked by a delayed train. Once the engineering department had a chance to review the numbers, the analysis was broken down into four categories per gate: the total number of gate malfunctions, total time of the malfunctions, number of trains delayed due to a gate malfunction, and the total time the trains were delayed. Initially, the analysis only involved an examination of the raw numbers provided and was displayed primarily in a series of graphs and tables. However, the results were lacking a comprehensive way to analyze the problem city-wide. To help highlight problem gates found in the data, the engineering department asked the city’s GIS department to assist with the project.
By adding a spatial component to the analysis, gates with more malfunctions or longer train delays could be visually identified across the city. This helped to determine where problem areas are located or which rail lines running through the city have the most gate-related problems. While the numeric data provided by the police department showed that there are problems with some of the city’s gates, it did not show how the data for each gate is relevant compared to other gates in the city. Providing a spatial snapshot of the gate data gave the engineers a tool to see that not only are there a significant number of gate malfunctions and train delays overall, but that the problem extends to almost every gate in the city.
Being able to compare the data visually at a city-wide scale allowed the engineering department to see the potential impact that train gate malfunctions have on several critical traffic-related issues, such as emergency response vehicle delays and daily traffic pattern congestion. Working with both the numeric data and the maps provided by the GIS department, the city engineers can more efficiently develop possible solutions to mitigate the current problems and attempt to address the question of why certain gates are malfunctioning more than others to help reduce future incidents.
Of all the services provided by local municipalities around the world, public safety is arguably the most recognizable and widely supported. Everyone wants to feel that they are safe and that someone will respond to assist them in the case of an emergency. The Village of Winnetka traditionally has provided fire, EMS, and police protection to its residences since it was established, however, over the years, these Village departments have started to provide service to additional areas immediately outside the village boundaries through a series of public service contracts. To assist with coordinating response efforts in these service agreement areas, the fire and police departments asked the village GIS department for assistance.
While several of these contracts are for police services in unincorporated areas south of the village limits, the fire department has the added responsibility of providing service to the Village of Kenilworth, a small municipality located southeast of Winnetka. For years, this area has either not been mapped or has been poorly mapped, making it difficult to plan efficient response routes. To help resolve these issues, the GIS department created several data layers for Kenilworth that allow for more effective response mapping.
Since the Village of Kenilworth is not part of the GIS Consortium, much of the base data for this area was provided by Cook County, including roads, parcels, and an initial street address range line. The other information used to develop this data, such as individual addresses and street names, was provided by a combination of the Winnetka fire and police departments. Using these two sources, a Kenilworth street name table and an initial address database were developed. While these two data layers do not complete the Kenilworth dataset, they allow for additional information to be developed in the Village database, such as a more accurate street address range feature class.
While this service area data is being developed to assist the overall public safety efforts of the Village of Winnetka, ultimately, the police and fire department will use it to accomplish different goals. For the police department, since they provide response assistance to Kenilworth and, often, travel through the village when responding to calls in other communities, the street address range data will be inputted into an existing CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) system to provide responding officers with both village address ranges and information on how the streets are aligned to help improve response times. For the fire department, since they are the primary response agency for Kenilworth, the individual resident and commercial property addresses are critical for pinpointing the exact location of an emergency call. A detailed map of Kenilworth, including streets, parcel lines, and individual addresses, will be created to provide the department with accurate property information prior to going out on a call.
For both departments, the data developed by the GIS system will help to improve their ability to respond more efficiently and with more certainty regarding the location of an emergency call. This leads to better public safety services for the Village of Kenilworth and a more reliable system for the Village of Winnetka in responding to an emergency event.
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
The Village of Glencoe wanted to link their hydrant database to hydrant locations in their GIS to create a series of hydrant maps. The Geographic Information System (GIS) Department along with the Glencoe Department of Public Safety coordinated a project plan to synchronize highly critical hydrant operational data from a database to the hydrant features within the GIS. The Public Safety Department is using a ProHydrant Program to systematically test all hydrants throughout the village. It was determined the data collected in the field could be used more efficiently if it was transferred to the GIS. A primary goal was creating a product to facilitate analysis, mapping, and other functions.
The project involved three parties, including the Public Safety Department, ProHydrant software vendor, and the GIS Department. Communication occurred mostly between the Public Safety Department and the vendor. The only item requested from the GIS Department was to add the FeatureID to the database. This a unique identifier field used in the GIS system to track hydrant features. With this unique id, the GIS system is able to associate data from the vendor database back into the GIS system.
This vendor field information is extremely useful because it enhances the GIS database by making it a more informative product. Some examples of hydrant data collected in the field included addresses, hydrant flow rates, hydrant type and model, color, condition status, and other important information collected while the vendor conducted field-testing.
The collected field data was provided to the GIS Department and then the data was linked into the system using the FeatureID field. This was completed quickly and a related table of field information was linked to the hydrant feature in the GIS system. This is important because it allowed for the mapping and display all the collected field information. In addition, we transferred all the hydrant flow data collected in the field into the GIS database. This is important because it allowed the GIS system to display the water flow rates of hydrants on a map giving the Public Safety Department the ability to spatially and visually inspect the data throughout the Village. In addition, the data now had the ability to be incorporated into other GIS products including the GIS Consortium MapOffice™ Advance, the GIS Consortium Mobile Data View, ESRI ArcReader, and ESRI ArcView.
In conclusion, GIS was a powerful tool that provided a common platform for data reporting and visualization of geographical information. The project showcased in this article is a prime example of how data from outside sources can be shared and used more efficiently through GIS.
To help respond to a potential community-wide emergency, most local governments have an emergency response plan in place to assist with the organization and execution of community policies and protocols. As technology has improved over the years, the City of Des Plaines started integrating Geographic Information System (GIS) into a tool for assisting with the management of an emergency event response.
In recent years, the city dealt with two major flooding events that required city departments to respond quickly to the needs of its residents. This included responding during the events by implementing preventative measures to mitigate property damage, and after the events to assist with cleanup and damage assessment. Since each event affected several areas of the city, it was difficult to manage and respond to each area efficiently and to see the extent of the damage using traditional methods of data management. By inputting the collected information into the city’s GIS system, each department was able to see the event spatially and get a total perspective of how the flooding was impacting different areas.
The way GIS was used during and after these events varied depending on the department. Examples of the map products produced include road closure maps, standing-water location maps, damage-assessment zone maps, and sandbag placement maps. While each map was designed based on a specific department request, they were ultimately used to assist departments with communicating information to each other. Providing the collected data spatially provided a universal language that allowed all city employees to understand the specific event being displayed and where it was impacting the city. However, maps were not the only products that were produced. Another critical function the GIS system served was to provide address lists to building inspectors, public works field crews, and police department officials to convey information regarding damaged and flooded homes and city properties. Collectively, these products provided the city with critical resources to help manage the mitigation and cleanup of each flood event.
In addition, to paper mapping products and address lists, the city also used GIS to perform “on the spot” data review of contours, city structures, roads, and other infrastructure features. This was performed using ESRI’s ArcMap and ArcReader software, which allowed departments to interactively view and analyze GIS data as needed. Being able to view this information electronically, and add information to the system as needed, allowed city users to quickly access vital data that assisted in activities such as flood stage analysis and sandbag placement determination.
Including GIS as part of the city’s emergency management strategy has allowed the city to react quickly to emergency events by improving inter-department communication and the ability to review the impact of the event by spatially analyzing the extent of the damage that occurred. This capability provides the city with a powerful tool for responding to an emergency in a way that maximizes its ability to help its residents.
In 1916, the United States created the Federal-aid Highway Program with the primary objective being the improvement of rural roads. This changed with the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944, which authorized the first specific funds for urban highways, specifically the creation of a formula for the distribution of federal-aid funds among the primary, secondary, and urban systems. Today, there are three federal-aid systems: The Interstate Highway System, the Federal-aid Primary highway system (FAP), and the Federal-aid Secondary highway system. The Federal-aid Secondary highway system is broken into secondary non-urban (FAS) and secondary urban (FAU). The interstate system consists of routes connecting and running through and around major urban centers. The FAP consists of a system of connected main highways, while the FAS are composed of principal secondary and feeder routes. Both aid systems are chosen by state highway departments and local officials, but are subject to approval by the Bureau of Public Roads. Having roads designated as federal-aid means that the federal and state governments provide funds and take care of repairs instead of the community in which the road is located. This allows the local government to spend money in other areas.
The Village of Wheeling currently has 12 routes designated as either FAP or FAU. These consist of major roads throughout the village such as Palatine Road, Wolf Rd, and Milwaukee Ave. The village submitted a proposal to add 6 more roads to the Federal-Aid Urban System. These include: Anthony Road, Equestrian Drive, Lexington Drive, Manchester Drive, Northgate Parkway, and Strong Avenue. The village’s capital projects department requested that the Geographic Information System (GIS) department create a large map showing all current and proposed FAP and FAU routes as well as small 8.5” x 11” maps detailing the starting and ends of each routes with all existing traffic signals and stop signs, to be submitted for approval. This saved the department the time and effort previously required to create detailed maps by hand or using an inefficient, program.
As of May 2009, a decision has not been reached on the approval of the six routes as Federal-aid routes, but GIS provided the capital projects department an easy way to submit their proposal without spending a significant amount of time creating the maps needed for the proposal.
The City of Highland Park Fire Department is considering relocating one of their three fire stations where they can build a larger station. Moving this fire station will affect the response times within the community. In order to help understand the extent to which the new fire department will alter the response times, the city enlisted the help of the Geographic Information System (GIS) Department.
The Fire Department contacted the GIS department in order to evaluate the response time network covered by five-minute response areas. The base layer for the response time network consists of a road centerline feature. Information added to this feature including speed limits and one-way restrictions allowed response times to be calculated. Using the formula of 60*length of segment/speed limit, a response time was populated for each segment. The response time is the cost of travelling that segment of road. Placing other restrictions including, turns, stop signs, and prohibited u-turns to model intersections, increased the accuracy of the network.
The next step involved using the response time network to create a series of maps. The first group of maps showed the five-minute response area of the current configuration of fire stations. The second group of maps showed the five-minute response area of the southern fire station to one of two proposed locations. These proposed location maps also showed which properties were no longer within a five-minute response area as well as the new properties added to the five-minute response area of the proposed station location. The final series of maps showed five minute, twenty second, and five minute thirty second response times. These maps demonstrated that many properties removed from the five-minute response areas are still within a reasonable response area from one of the fire stations.
With the creation of the road response network and the related map products, the Fire Department had valuable information for assessing the impact of moving the location of an existing fire station. With this information, the Fire Department is able to show interested parties the impact of relocating one of the fire stations.
The Village of Wheeling fire department created fire districts for the purpose of sectioning off the village so that village firefighters would have a better idea where an incident was located and what station would be the closest for response. The districts were sectioned off by neighborhood and each one was given a four digit reference code. The fire department then created maps of each district showing the streets that were located within each one. While the maps were effective at first, they eventually became outdated due to changes in the village. The fire department asked the GIS Specialist to create an updated Fire District Map Book that would also include features not available in the previous version.
Using GIS, a new map book was created to meet the fire departments specifications. The two new items requested to be added to the map book were fire hydrant locations and village addresses. The fire department went out and marked the location of each hydrant within the village so that the exact locations could be added. With the fire hydrant locations known, the firefighters would not have to waste time locating a hydrant when responding to an incident. With the addresses displayed, the fire department can easily locate the location of an incident, especially in the case of an apartment complex where the addresses are now broken down by building allowing the fire department to respond to the correct building. In addition to the hydrant locations and the addresses, the street names and the parcels were updated reflecting the changes to the village since the last map book was created. Each map book consists of individual pages that can be replaced individually in case of an update or if a page is lost or destroyed.
With the completion of the updated fire district map books and the placement of them within their vehicles, the fire department can now respond more efficiently and more effectively to an incident within 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.
The Village of Winnetka Fire Department recently utilized the Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) to complete a community-wide fire hydrant flow rate review. Accurate flow rate information is critical to the department for knowing how much water pressure is available from a hydrant at a given location in the village.
By assigning flow rate information to all the hydrants in GIS, this information can be easily mapped and used for reference. While the department flow rate inventory continues to be maintained using other methods in addition to GIS, such as a hydrant inventory list, being able to visualize the data spatially reduces the amount of time necessary to retrieve this valuable hydrant attribute.
To assist in the initial stages of this inventory development process, the GIS department provided a Village-wide map of fire hydrant locations with each hydrant color coded by its existing flow rate information. This preliminary flow rate data was inputted into the GIS system several years ago from multiple sources, including as-builts and CAD-drawings. Using this data as a base to work from, the Fire Department began reviewing the flow rates using a variety of methods including field checks, existing inventory lists and personal knowledge of the fire hydrants from the department’s hydrant officer.
While the main focus of the review was to update the hydrant flow rate information, the Fire Department also used this opportunity to mark up the map with new hydrants that were missing from the village’s GIS mapped water system. This information allowed the GIS department to not only update the existing hydrants but also to improve the accuracy of the water system as a whole. This system improvement not only benefits the Fire Department but also the Public Works and Water and Electric departments, which in turn reference the Village utility information in their day to day business processes.
With the review complete, the Fire Department now has a quick reference map for checking both the location and flow rate information for each hydrant in the village. It also provides the department with an easy-to-use, effective device for providing additional updates to the GIS Department in the event of future changes to the system.
By combining the existing Village hydrant inventory resources with the spatial components of GIS, the village now has a more robust flow rate reference tool. Improving the capability of the department to determine water pressure information for a given hydrant improves its ability to assist the village residents when responding to a fire emergency. Overall, it is easy to see how the GIS Department and Fire Department were able to work side by side to improve the accuracy of the water utility infrastructure that they had mapped in the GIS and what the village staff accesses on a daily basis.
The City of Park Ridge Fire Department, like all other Fire Departments, takes great pride in responding to their residents in a quick and timely manner. Part of taking pride in this service means that they are prepared at all times and are ready to act when the bell goes off. Their hard work doesn’t stop there though, as they are always investigating ways to improve their systems and response times to incidents within and outside the city limits. Whether it is receiving a good numerical grade for the Public Protection Classification (PPC*) or a high rating for Fire Suppression Rating Schedule (FSRS*), the Fire Department is always enhancing their efficiency to provide a great service.
In addition to the tests listed above, the Park Ridge Fire Department contacted the Geographic Information System (GIS) Department in order to evaluate the response time network covered by five-minute response areas. The base layer for the response time network consists of a road centerline feature. Information added to the road centerline feature, including speed limits and one-way restrictions allowed for response times to be calculated. Using the formula of “60*length of segment/speed limit,” a response time was populated for each segment. The response time is the cost of travelling that segment of road. Placing other restrictions including turns, stop signs as well as prohibited u-turns for modeling intersections only increased the accuracy of the network.
When the final product of the road centerline feature was completed it was then run through a specific GIS tool that would trace all street segments for five-minutes worth of drive time from each fire station in the city. The result of this analysis was a highlighted area of coverage from each fire station, which allowed the Fire Department to visually see where coverage did and did not exist. In this case the test successfully proved that the two Park Ridge fire stations were accurately located within the city allowing them to reach all corners of town within a five-minute drive time.
In conclusion, it is great to see how the Park Ridge IL, Fire Department, along with the assistance of the GIS Department, were able to work together in order to continue to providing the city with a safe and efficient service for their residents.