The Village of Oak Brook’s Police Department recently closed a case involving an armed robbery at a local McDonald’s and requested the assistance of GIS to help display some of the evidence used to convict the suspects. Following the incident the Police Department was able to identify and arrest 3 suspects in the robbery. In an effort to build the best possible case, Oak Brook Detectives acquired the cell phone records of one of the perpetrators in an effort to pinpoint him in the area of the robbery, at the time in which it occurred. The actual phone records were a key piece of evidence because they were able to identify usage of the suspect’s cell phone within about a quarter mile of the McDonald’s, both before and after the robbery took place, even though the suspect is not from the immediate area. But the Detective wanted more than just a spreadsheet with addresses and call times proving the suspect was in the area, he wanted a map displaying the location of the cell towers, the time of the phone calls, and the direction from which the calls were made.
Using the cell phone usage information provided by the detective, the GIS staff was able to locate and map the location of all the cell towers the suspect used during a period of time before and after the robbery. The next step was to use the azimuth sectors pertaining to each call made to determine the direction in which the call was coming from. As shown in the image, the McDonald’s that was robbed is located almost exactly in between the two cell towers used by the suspect’s cell phone. Additionally, the map displays that the suspect was indeed using their cell phone near the McDonald’s both before and after the robbery occurred. To coincide with the map displayed with this article, a second map was produced showing the cell towers that were used while the suspect was on their way to the Village, as well as departing to their final destination. These maps and phone records, along with other pieces evidence obtained by the detective were ultimately used to convict the three suspects of armed robbery. Without using GIS to display the information, the jury would have relied on non-graphic spreadsheets displaying the cell phone information, which doesn’t provide the direction in which the calls were made along with the overall perspective of the night’s incident.
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.
Every community, whether large or small, has the problem of traffic accidents occurring on a daily basis. Most of these accidents take place in and around road intersections. The Park Ridge Police Department is constantly looking for ways to improve the safety at high risk intersections and decrease the amount of accidents that take place there. GIS was chosen as the best method to calculate the number of accidents that occur at a particular intersection within a particular time frame as well as illustrate how certain intersections had a decrease in accidents after certain safety measures were instituted.
The GIS department has been mapping traffic accidents on a monthly, bi-yearly and yearly basis going back many years in Park Ridge. A top ten list of intersections with the highest amount of accidents is calculated every six months from the accident maps and the higher counts are studied further to see what changes could be made to improve the safety at those locations. For the 2012 study, three locations were chosen based off of high 2011 accident counts. Certain safety improvements were made such as adding a “No Turn on Red” sign, adding an additional stop side on the opposite side of a street, or simply just changing the timing of the stoplights. After the 2012 accident totals showed great improvement at those locations, a map was created illustrating the sharp decline in accidents from 2011 to 2012 at those highlighted intersections. Without GIS, the traffic coordinator would spend an enormous amount of time browsing through accident reports, counting the accidents by hand and then illustrating his or her findings without the aid of a map.
The City of Highland Park Police Department and GIS have recently collaborated to introduce Crime Maps for the publics’ viewing purposes. Historically, Highland Park residents would not have the ability to view where crime is occurring in the area. Now, with a click of the mouse they can view month by month maps of crimes in Highland Park.
Each month, data is sent to the GIS staff from Police that includes the addresses and the type of incidents. Using this information, the GIS staff is able to map out each crime location and provide a map product to the department showing crime totals. From there, it is placed on the Highland Park webpage for the public to easily access and view.
Without GIS, it would be increasingly difficult to spatially view crime patterns and understand where problems are occurring in the city. By tracking the crime spatially, the Police Department is able to view possible areas of high incidents.
The Village of Wheeling Police Department, like all police departments, uses Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) Machines to assist when dispatching squad cars and ambulances. These systems typically come with some sort of mapping program that shows the address of where a call is coming from and the location of all police vehicles in the village. Usually these maps are populated with generic regional data and don’t contain much detail. The Village of Wheeling Police Department requested that the base maps be updated with detailed village data currently residing in the village’s online mapping program; MapOffice™ Advanced.
By using a combination of software installed with the CAD machines and existing Village data, the GIS department was able to upload improved and more accurate information for the dispatchers. Updated information included addresses, building footprints, parking lots, streets, daycares, and much more. This allowed the dispatchers to see up-to-date information that is maintained locally, instead of free regional data that may be a few years out-of-date. This also allows them to give correct information to any officers that are dispatched to a call, such as building locations or vehicle entrances and exits. By using GIS, the Village of Wheeling is able to give their dispatchers and officers updated information that is beneficial for their needs.
Crime is an issue that no community takes lightly, and the reduction and prevention of crime is something that all Police and Public Safety Departments strive to achieve. An important aspect of this is the understanding of crime occurrence from a visual perspective. In doing so, Police and Public Safety Departments can attempt to identify crime patterns throughout their community. The Village of Glenview Police Department works with the GIS Department to create a monthly crime incident map for various types of crime throughout the Village, including burglary, criminal damage, and theft. A monthly report of police call activity is generated, which includes both the type and location of each call. The GIS Department then maps out each call on the report by incident type. In displaying each incident visually, GIS can help the Police Department identify any patterns that may exist.
The monthly crime incident maps are also posted on the Village website for the public to view. This keeps residents informed and helps them to understand where crime is taking place in their community.
Without the help of GIS, it would be more difficult to visualize the location of each crime incident and, in turn, any potential spatial trends occurring throughout the community.
One convenience of having GIS is the ability to quickly visualize different scenarios for planning purposes. The Village of Lincolnshire recently leveraged its GIS data to do just that in response to a bill under consideration by the Illinois House of Representatives. HB 30, the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act, would allow the sale and possession of small amounts of marijuana to people “diagnosed by a physician as having a debilitating medical condition.” Should the bill become law, Lincolnshire officials would be faced with the possibility of medical marijuana organizations renting or purchasing commercial space within the Village.
In its current form, the bill states that no medical marijuana organization may be within 2,500 feet of a “public or private preschool or elementary or secondary school or day care center, day care home, group day care home, or part day child care facility.” Decision makers in the Village were interested in the proximity of Lincolnshire’s three business districts to child care facilities. To determine this, GIS was used to identify the property lines for all child care facilities and then measure out 2,500-foot buffer zones in all directions. These were added to a map of the three business districts, which highlighted areas where medical cannabis organizations would not be allowed to set up.
Given the controversial nature of this proposal, Lincolnshire’s decision makers were eager to get extra lead time to discuss how they would respond. By providing a quick spatial analysis of two disparate data sets, the Village has an efficient and powerful tool to aid their discussion and decision making.
In 2010, the Village of Glenview started subscribing to a foreclosure data-delivery service from Sullivan’s Law Directory. This information is loaded into a GIS database, which is then used to generate reports and reference maps. Village officials have used these weekly reports to dispel myths about the community’s rate of foreclosures, monitor properties proactively for code violations, and keep an eye out for any patterns in criminal mischief.
Recently, GIS mapped this data in new ways to get different perspectives on the impact of foreclosure rates. One project came from Economic Development, which requested a map that symbolized foreclosures according their primary usage. This map gave the Village planners a snapshot of how foreclosures have impacted the local business community. The map also provided a breakdown of percentages in each category, showing that the proportional impact was low.
Another recent project was a spatial analysis of foreclosures for the entire three-year period. By using an advanced tool called “kernel density analysis,” GIS was able to simplify a large amount of information by darkly shading areas where foreclosure rates have been the highest. This analysis helped to pinpoint specific multi-unit residences that have been particularly hard hit since 2010. These ongoing projects highlight the power of tracking information with GIS. Within minutes, the same information was analyzed from different perspectives according to the end user’s needs.
Spatial patterns that are not apparent in a text list become obvious when displayed on a map. While everyone hopes to see foreclosure rates drop significantly in the near future, it’s great to know that the Village has a versatile tool for proactively managing the ongoing impact.
New businesses will likely attract more people to a given area. Whole Foods is opening up a new store on Touhy Avenue between Washington Avenue and Berry Parkway. Residents living in the neighborhood around the future Whole Foods grocery store site are concerned that increased customer traffic heading to and from the store will lead to an increase in the speed of vehicles traveling down their residential streets, thereby making their quiet neighborhood more dangerous. The police department conducted speed surveys on all the nearby residential streets that will be affected when the store opens for business next year. To display the results from these surveys, GIS was utilized to create a map of the area with all the pertinent information that the police department can use for planning purposes.
Unlike previous speed survey maps created by GIS, this one was a little different. Individual surveys were taken for traffic flowing in both directions rather than having one survey averaging both directions together. This map also had more detailed information about the surveys than previous maps had. This is important for the next step in this project. Police plan to conduct the same survey on the same streets approximately six months after the store has opened. The findings from these surveys will then be analyzed and the appropriate measures will be taken to combat any problems or concerns that may have developed. Without GIS, all the data in this map would be locked up in spreadsheets and without any geographic connection. With these maps in hand, this data can be more easily understood and analyzed, therefore making the decision process less time consuming and more efficient.
It is that time of year again, there is crispness to the air, the leaves are changing, and school parking lots become traffic jammed with parents eager to once again sow the seeds of knowledge in their child’s minds. If not properly planned these school parking lots can become chaotic and very dangerous for both parents dropping off their children and for the children making their way across the parking lot. A number of schools in the Village have teamed up with Mike O’Hern of the Tinley Park Police Department and using GIS have created traffic plans for parents dropping off students.
These plans are then mailed to parents to inform them of the places that are safest for their children as well as most convenient for the parents to drop off the students. Along with the right tools and some prior planning dropping off students daily has become an A+ experience.
The Village of Oak Brook is known throughout the Chicagoland area for its many shopping centers and restaurants, the majority of which are located in a close proximity on 22nd St. As a result of these popular shopping and dining options there is a significant increase in daytime population, which unfortunately leads to more crimes and accidents in the shopping centers. The largest and most populous of these shopping centers is Oakbrook Center, a shopping mall located at the busy intersection of IL Rt. 83 and 22nd St. Oakbrook Center has a lot of shops and restaurants located throughout its grounds, as well as 5 large parking lots and 5 parking garages. The majority of incidents that the police respond to at Oakbrook Center are located in these parking areas, which are difficult to locate given that there are no specific addresses for the parking areas. As a result the police have to rely on parking lot colors, and the associated ID for each row.
The police department had traditionally relied on an old hand drawn map displaying the different parking lots, and the associated row ID. This map is now quite out dated and difficult to read. Additionally, the Police Department had to provide its new dispatch center with an accurate map that depicts which areas in the mall they will be responding too, and how the incident will be referred to in their reports. By providing the GIS staff with an old version of the map and having Community Service Officers do field checks, we were able to successfully update the mall layout. This provides a vital piece of information to all officers, dispatchers, and administration so that they know precisely which location to respond to, as well as giving the Police Department an opportunity to analyze and mitigate location based police incidents. Without using GIS, the Police Department would have to spend a significant amount of time updating the map by hand, without the opportunity to share the spatial data with its associated organizations.
The City of Highland Park uses the New Application to dispatch Fire and Police units to reported incidents. From the addresses used to accurately respond to incidents to the background layers used in the map, New World relies heavily on GIS information. Without accurate GIS information supplied by the City, the New World application would have difficulty creating accurate responses. One of the most crucial factors in accurate responses are good addresses. This is supplied by the GIS systems as address points and a street centerline. These are regularly reviewed and updated by the GIS Office and other City Employees.
The New World application requires data to be in a specific format with specific fields. The GIS Office wrote a script that efficiently converts the GIS data to required format. The GIS Office also provides support during data by assisting the Police Department with loading the GIS data into New World. Their primary role during this process is resolving data related issues.
Without a robust GIS, the City would have o pay for GIS data provided by a vendor. This data would not be as accurate as data maintained by the City. Also, the City would not have the direct support they currently have during the data updates. Maintaining an accurate and complete GIS ensure that New World is using the best data possible and that it is returning accurate responses. The residents of Highland Park can be assured that their dispatch services will respond efficiently, should they ever need them.
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.
In Illinois, state law prevents a sex offender from living within 500 feet of a school, park, playground, or any other facility that provides recreation or other services to children. When a sex offender moves into a new community, they are required by law to register with their local law enforcement agency. This includes providing their address of their place of residence. The local police must determine whether or not the sex offender’s address is within 500 feet of a restricted area. We determined that the most efficient way to accomplish this was by utilizing GIS.
Using GIS, the offender’s parcel was highlighted along with all the other restricted areas within the community. A 500 foot buffer was created from the offender’s parcel boundary and then overlaid to compare with the restricted areas. In this case, the property was within 500 feet of a park, so the police officer must notify the offender that a new place of residence is needed. Once a new residence is notified to the authorities, this same process will occur all over again. This method is a quick and efficient way of handling the problem, being that it is uses an accurate measurement and it saves time and money by avoiding unnecessary field work.
The Village of Lincolnwood Police Department creates an annual report to share with residents, Village staff, and the Village Board. The report outlines the achievements by the Police Department while also providing crime statistics. In order to better serve the residents, the Geographic Information System (GIS) Department worked with the Police Department to create maps to display the crime data visually by Police Beat. This creates more transparency and allows the Police Department to better assess the crime locations. In addition to providing visuals, the GIS can also provide spatial analysis which is important when trying to locate patterns of criminal activity.
Preventing crime and working to ensure a higher quality of life for the general public is a primary goal of any police agency, particularly at the local government level. For the City of Des Plaines, IL, these efforts led the city’s Police Department to start using a crime prevention technique, referred to as Comparative Statistics (COMPSTAT), that use crime statistics gathered over time to highlight incident patterns and high crime areas. By analyzing these patterns, the department can better focus their mitigation efforts in areas that are experiencing a higher number of crime incidents. To help show these patterns in a way that could be easily understood and disseminated by all department staff, the department asked the city’s Geographic Information System (GIS) personnel to generate both a weekly and monthly map product that plotted each crime location.
Every week, the Police Records Division, which tracks all crime data for the department, provides the GIS staff with a summary of the crime incidents from the previous week. Included in each summary report is the location of each incident, the date and time the incident occurred, and the crime code (i.e. theft) associated with each location. Using this information, the GIS staff is able to map out each crime location and, since the data is provided every week, provide a map product to the department showing the cumulative crime totals from the beginning of each month to the end of the current week being reported. Over time, various patterns in the data begin to emerge and higher crime areas become visually apparent on each resulting map product.
Without GIS, these efforts would prove to be more difficult as it would be challenging to understand where problems were emerging without having a tool to visualize where they are located within the city. By tracking crime locations using a spatial platform over the course of a few weeks, or even a few months, the department can visualize where high crime areas are and begin to implement practices that can help to reduce the number of incidents that are occurring.
Using technology to assist with police department operations is become more and more important in today’s world. From providing new safety devices to help protect officers to supplying comprehensive vehicle registration information during a traffic stop, the use of technology has made departments more prepared and, as a result, more efficient in completing their day to day tasks. For the Village of Winnetka, IL police department, integrating technology includes utilizing the village’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) program to perform basic mapping and advanced spatial analysis of department data. For example, to help better establish an incident’s timeline during a recent investigation, the department asked the village GIS staff to develop a map showing the different locations of an officer’s pursuit of a suspect from the beginning to the end of the event.
Provided with Global Positioning System (GPS) location information collected from the officer’s vehicle during the incident, the GIS staff was able to plot out the available X and Y coordinates to visualize the path the officer’s vehicle took during the pursuit. In addition to the spatial location of each recorded point, the time each point was collected was also provided, allowing for the development of a spatial timeline describing where and when the officer was while pursuing the suspect. To help see how the events of the pursuit developed, each point that was recorded was placed on a map and labeled with its corresponding time, giving the department a powerful learning tool for reviewing pursuit procedures and evaluating the course of action that was taken to better prepare for a similar incident in the future.
Now that Elk Grove Village, IL has a Geographic Information System (GIS) they can quickly perform a verification of potential sex offender residences. Every so often the Police Department will receive a request for residency by a registered sex offender and the staff is required to determine if the property meets the sex offender residence restrictions of the State of Illinois. Sex offenders are restricted from living five hundred feet from schools, parks, and day cares for example. The location between the inquired property and distances from these facilities can be analyzed quite easily because of the analysis capabilities within the geographic nature of the GIS and the fact that property information is the base of the system. Maps can be produced as well when residency is approved or denied as supporting documentation of the evaluation that was performed.
The Records Clerk for the Police Department is responsible with sending out notices to residents who qualify for Residential Only Parking Permits. These are permits that permit residents to of certain areas to park on specific streets as described in the ordinances. It is important that all the residents who qualify for the permits are notified. Otherwise if they park on the street they will be ticketed.
Previously the address list for each permit was stored in an Excel worksheet. This made it hard to maintain as updates were performed manually. Also, there were no guarantees that they would be notified of address updates. The GIS Office was asked if they could setup an automated process that would generate an address list for each Resident Only Permit. Using GIS software the extent specified for each permit was created as an area. Next areas not designated as a residential zoning district were removed. Finally all the address points within these areas were selected and summarized to remove duplicates. The final product was an Excel Worksheet with a list of addresses for each resident only permit area.
Without access to GIS software, the Police Department would still be using outdated address list stored in Excel. By using GIS software, address list can be generated using the GIS address database which is the master address database for the City. Thus the City will save money by not sending notices to incorrect addresses or have to worry about missing addresses that should be included in a Resident Only Permit area.
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.
Many homes may come equipped with a driveway for parking vehicles, there are many homes that do not. Additionally, there may be homes that have too many cars to fit on one drive way requiring them to park on the street. Regardless of the case, parking on public streets is something that needs to be monitored in order to ensure traffic safety or potential neighborly disputes. In local government, parking on public streets is handled by the municipal ordinances, monitored by the police and permit parking sticker distribution is controlled by local staff.
Although these systems have been working for years, the Village of Morton Grove, IL wanted to take things in a different direction by making their ordinance information spatial. By way of their Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Department, the data from the Village’s ordinance manual was mapped out so that anyone who is allowed to receive a permit parking vehicle sticker would indeed get one. Moreover, those residents that did not show up in the allowable permit parking mapped areas, would not be eligible to receive a sticker.
All of the mapped out data is now available to the Village staff via a local interactive mapping application. Instead of looking up ordinances in the municipal code or reviewing paper files for each property, the Village employee can now launch the interactive map, search for a property and identify if that resident lives within a permit parking zone. Not only is this application easy to use, it keeps the data in one centralized location so that things are easier to find, thus improving the time efficiency of each employee who uses it.
One of the many benefits to investing in a quality GIS program is the ability to repurpose that data to support other in-house computer applications. One example of this comes from the Lincolnshire Police Department, which uses the Village’s GIS address database in its dispatching software. Both the 911 and computer-assisted dispatch (CAD) software consume locally maintained address data, which has a higher validity and reliability standard than what is offered in commercial products. Further, address changes can be integrated quickly, leading to less confusion between dispatchers and officers in the field.
Budget-conscious staff members also appreciate the use of in-house GIS data. By asking the GIS specialist to update this data, the Police Department is able to avoid paying several thousand dollars in annual maintenance contracts. As local governments are increasingly pressured to do more with less, they are finding that cost offsets like this one highly valuable.
When a major traffic accident occurs within DuPage County, an accident task force called MCRT (Major Accident Reconstruction Team) comprised of officers from many different departments throughout the area is sent to the scene of the accident to do an investigation and write an accident report. The final report consists of different criteria including a written portion which describes the events that took place during the accident. And a visual portion which is a drawing at a scale of 1 to 10 feet that displays things such as: distance traveled, impact zones, and the final resting spot, among other things.
Given the odd nature of this accident, which involved a vehicle traveling off the road at high rate of speed, and going thru a creek and into a tree. A detective from the Oak Brook Police Department requested the assistance of GIS in displaying the vehicles final resting position. His goal was to take the image drawn by the MCRT team and lay it over high resolution aerial imagery in an effort to display the actual location of the final resting spot. Using GIS was a perfect solution for the final product they were seeking because of GIS’ ability to georeference images to a chosen scale. By taking known geographic points within their initial accident sketch, the GIS specialist was able to match the sketch to real locations found in the imagery. The image shown displays the final resting position of the vehicle, drawn by MCRT staff, laid over aerial imagery while maintaining the scale of 1 inch equals 10 feet. This new image can now be used in court while describing the events that took place during the accident.
In 2009 Elk Grove Village Police Department began an evaluation of police beats and staffing by mapping and calculating statistics of calls for service using it’s Geographic Information System (GIS). To continue the assessment in 2010 the GIS was used to map all roadways in town and produce an estimated time for a unit to patrol each police beat. The single lane mileage together with speed limit along each roadway was enough information to calculate the patrol times. Combining the 2009 and 2010 evaluations the Police Department has a much clearer picture of the demands for each beat and the amount of staffing that is needed to meet various levels of service for the residents.
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.
Summer provides the public with a wealth of opportunities to explore their neighboring communities. Festivals, races, sidewalk sales and parades are as abundant as the warm sunshine. While these special events offer the chance to relax and have fun, they also create a lot of work for those who are charged with managing them. Fortunately, GIS provides staff members with an efficient way to track spatial data and customize it to meet the needs of multiple departments. As an example, the Village of Glencoe recently put GIS to use in its planning process for the Fourth of July parade. The Village Manager’s office requested an easy-to-understand map of the parade route to distribute to the participants. The GIS specialist also added it to MapOffice™ Advanced, which made the parade route available to any member of the Village staff. As shown in the snapshot, MapOffice™ Advanced allows users to view the parade route on a map or an aerial photo, depending upon their needs. When a Public Safety supervisor saw the map, he was inspired to request another special event map. This one displayed both courses and all of the stations in the Glencoe Grand Prix bike race. Since the parade route map met the size and design specifications of Public Safety, the GIS specialist was able to quickly meet this new request by switching out the necessary information. Finally, the Glencoe Grand Prix plan was added into MapOffice™ Advanced so that Dispatch had a visual reference to enhance its ability to communicate with people in the field. Without GIS, the time and resources needed to create each of these custom maps would have been cost-prohibitive.
The City of Highland Park hosts many events from the running races to hosting craft fairs. These events bring many visitors into the community. These visitors will spend money at local businesses and help maintain the local economy. The City relies on GIS to provided detailed maps that allow City Staff to evaluate proposed conditions and make appropriate changes before the event.
Support from GIS can be as basic as displaying the starting area, race route, water station, and ending area for a race event. However, craft fairs and Taste of Highland Park events usually require more complex maps, which show numbered booths, barricades streets, traffic flow, and other detailed information required to plan the event. The GIS support occurs into two to three stages. The first stage is a request for a map or an update to an existing map. The next two to three steps involve review the changes and requesting updates to reflect current concerns. Another advantage of GIS is that the map projects are stored digitally and can be updated annually with a minimal amount of work. Without GIS the maps would have to be recreated each year or updates would be drawn on an older copy of the event map and sent to a graphic designer for updates. In a worst case scenario the City would have to rely on an event map provided by the organizer of the event.
The City leverages GIS to create accurate maps in an efficient manner. Thus the City can ensure events are run safely. City Staff can also quickly make updates to an event map without having to recreate the map.
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.
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.
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.
Twice a year the City of Park Ridge offers its residents a chance to attend a Citizen’s Police Academy in order to learn more about the standard police processes that occur on a daily basis. Some of the topics discussed at this academy include traffic enforcement, DUI enforcement and standard police procedures. The overall goal of this academy is to allow the citizens of the city to participate in a program that will educate them on the many facets of the Police Department within a short nine week session. After nine weeks each member will graduate from the academy and will hopefully have a new outlook on their local Police Department.
This program, like any, has included some minor enhancements geared at helping the participants retrieve information in the proper ways so that it is easily understandable. One enhancement that was introduced to the Spring 2011 session was the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) maps to display the various products that the Police Department utilizes to help them analyze the events happening within the city. Two of the maps that were supplied included a police beat map and a traffic accident count map. These maps were then inserted into the materials that each participant receives at the academy and acted as a visual aid during a discussion on a particular procedure carried out by a police officer (i.e. police enforcement and traffic study analysis).
Everybody processes information differently but it is believed that the introduction of maps into the Citizen’s Police Academy will play a positive role in the interpretation of information by the academy’s participants. Sometimes a simple map can go a long way.
On average, the Village of Wheeling has 120 reported traffic accidents per month. These accidents range from simple fender benders, to ones that result in major property damage. The village police department maintains a record database detailing each reported accident with such data as its location and the time the accident was reported. By maintaining this database, the police department is able to track the amount of accidents by time and day of the week. In addition to the data that they were tracking in their database, the police department wanted a series of maps showing the location of each accident so the officers would get a visual representation of the database.
A series of maps were created showing the traffic accidents for each month broken down by the type of accident. By seeing the location of all the accidents on each map, the officers get a good idea where all the accidents are occurring and can take measures to prevent accidents in those areas with the help of other village departments. By having a visual representation of their accident data, the police can make better decisions on where their officers should investigate.
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.
Over the last six months the City of Highland Park has experienced an increase in vehicle burglaries. This has led to pressure from residents to reduce the number of vehicle break-ins. The Police Department based on reports and interviews has two people of interest. However, they were looking for a way to confirm their hunches as to which incidents were mostly committed by the suspects from the ones which were truly isolated incidents.
The Police Department asked the GIS Office to create a map of vehicle burglaries. The requested maps showed the location of vehicle break in. The incident locations were colored by the month they occurred in. The symbols were also sized to show how many vehicle break-ins occurred at each location. The final map product was useful not only grouping the incidents by location but establishing time frame when these events occurred. From them map it was easy to see that some of the clusters occurred during a specific month.
All of the suspects were eventually caught and the map is being used as evidence in Court Proceedings. By leveraging the power of GIS the Police Department was able to a product that confirmed some of there hunches as to the some of the incidents being linked. Thus creating a useful piece of evidence for charging the suspects with committing some of the incidents.
It is simple to say that speeding occurs in almost any location that there is a car and a road. Although this straightforward comment may be true, it still leaves a lot of room for a Police Department or Traffic Safety Engineer to question why. Is the speed limit too low? Are there not enough stop signs on a specific street? Is the speeding occurring near a high school? All of these questions are fair to ask and seem to be brought up often when conducting a speed survey study. For the City of Park Ridge they decided that on top of the typical questions that they could ask they would also benefit from the use of a Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis. The GIS would not only bring in a mapping component to each speed survey study but it would also allow for a city wide comparison as to how some of these studies may be spatially related; both of which were not previously available.
In order to make the speed survey results usable within GIS the information first had to be converted into a geographic data. This was done by way of a complex GIS method called linear referencing and entailed the representation of each speed survey study as a line on a map. Furthermore, this complex operation worked by creating a new line segment for each study area and did not require any splitting of the original road centerline data. Most importantly, linear referencing allowed multiple street segments (i.e. city blocks) to be consolidated into one line segment holding the same attributes; something that was very helpful considering that the city had many blocks that did not start and stop at a street intersection and data editing would be laborious. The end result came in the form of a map displaying each study area with labels indicating the speed numbers that were recorded during a specific month and year. In the end, although the GIS process was a bit complex the goal was still achieved in the ability by taking data that was once textual and making it an analytical tool via a map.
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.
One of the many benefits that a Geographic Information System (GIS) can provide is the ability to keep data centralized so future updates can be made frequently and with ease. At the Village of Morton Grove the Police Department has decided take full advantage of the GIS to start their planning early for one of the largest event of the year, the Morton Grove Days Fourth of July Celebration. To the average spectator this special event may seem easy to host but that is simply not the case. The amount of planning that it takes for street closures, proper police coverage, safe seating, etc. all require well thought out ideas and eventually a few good maps.
Each year the Police Department implements a few new ideas that they believe will help the event go smoother than it may have in the previous year. But it was not until this year that they decided a map of the event area and all of its parts could act as a great aide for the new ideas that they are proposing to institute. The process simply starts as a rough draft map on paper that eventually makes its way in the computer as GIS data. Locations of police officers, music stages, patron seating areas, etc. all become GIS data that are stored in one centralized database in the computer. This data is then used in combination with other existing GIS data to create a simple map schematic of the event. Furthermore, the map is printed for review by the Police Department and any changes that need to be made are as easy as a few simple edits. Thus demonstrating how storing data in one centralized location such as a GIS can improve time efficiency when creating and updating maps for pre-planning purposes.
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.
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.
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 initiative for the Elk Grove Village Geographic Information System (GIS) has been the creation of police beat and sub beat information including coordination with the Northwest Central Dispatch Center who manages the Village’s emergency calls.
A desire of the Elk Grove Village Police Department is to better understand the dynamics of workload throughout the village and if certain areas could benefit from increased or an adjustment of patrol units. To realize the demand of the beats and sub beats the GIS was used to calculate statistics for 2008 and 2009 calls for service. Summarizing statistics by beat which as of now are generally defined by certain zoning types allows for an understanding of overall police activity. Further analysis by time of day showed which shifts are the busiest as well.
This information will provide a decision support tool as a restructure of beats is considered and can begin without interruption to dispatch services by testing dispatch changes along existing beat boundaries. Additional investigation of the data may suggest that patterns exist at even smaller time ranges which would suggest a shift of patrol at certain times of day or that certain types of incidents occur more often in some areas and result in a longer period of time at those types of calls.
After making use of these types of analysis it will be determined which are the most influential factors to determine patrol needs and can continue to be performed over time to validate trends and truly understand the policing demands.
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 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 Village of Oak Brook police department deals with crime and burglary incidents on a daily basis. With the Oak Brook center mall and extensive business district multiple incidents can occur in a short period of time. Prior to the implementation of GIS, the police department would manually enter each incident into a database by shift, date, location and type of incident. In order to review the crimes for the month, staff would have to sort through the database to determine how many burglaries, residential theft, forgery, etc. occurred. In order to visualize where the crimes occurred, staff would use push pins on a village map.
Using GIS, incidents were able to be visually depicted on a map through a process called geocoding. Geocoding allows addresses to be brought into GIS and placed in the correct location. Once all crimes and burglaries were brought into GIS, analysis was performed to highlight areas of high crime/burglaries. Maps where then created based on crime type (forgery, residential burglary, theft to motor vehicle, retail theft) that highlighted high areas for that particular incident. Summary statistics were then used to show how many incidents occurred per month and beat for each incident type.
The maps allowed police personnel to determine trends in crime and burglaries over the year and determine where additional police personnel would be needed. The police currently update their maps on a quarterly basis and look to do an analysis of crime by shift in the future.
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.
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.
Crime happens. Crimes are committed randomly, deliberately, while others are just crimes of opportunity. The Village of Skokie’s Police Department has been using Geographic Information System (GIS) to better understand where and when crimes are committed. By using geographic analysis, the Police Department can identify hotspots of criminal activity.
Geographic analysis of crimes helps the police department classify and patrol certain areas that generally have more crime. By mapping crimes the police can visually see clusters of like offenses. Skokie also has a tool in the Police Department that bridges the gap between the Crime database and mapping by creating a file that is easily used in the Village’s GIS, already populated with crimes. This eliminates time needed for the GIS Specialist or Police Department to format a spreadsheet of crimes to be used in the mapping process. Streamlining the process enables the police to use the most current data while using the least amount of time to accomplish their goal.
In the end, mapping and analyzing crimes helps the police better understand what goes on in the community. By finding clusters and hotspots, the police can patrol higher risk areas to better deter criminal activity.
Almost every day of the week, police officers are called to the scene of a traffic accident to provide assistance. But how many times does a police officer report to the same place twice? Moreover, do they report to high traffic volume intersections more than smaller residential streets for these accidents? These were the types of questions the Police Department for the Village of Morton Grove aimed to study. The Police Department wanted to analyze how many accidents were happening every three months and where exactly were these accidents taking place. Furthermore, they needed and easy method for displaying these results so they could attempt to find out what was causing these accidents to happen.
With these ideas in mind, the Police Department requested the services of the Geographic Information System (GIS) Department. By using the tools located within the GIS, each traffic accident that was recorded by the Police Department could easily geocoded to a geographical location. Geocoding is an operation that searches a street or address data file and locates the coordinate where an address falls on a particular street, in this case, the tool located the intersection where the accident occurred.
Once the traffic accidents are located, they are placed on a map in order to analyze where the most accidents arise as well as what time of day the accidents occurred. Each time the map was created it used different colored points to help the viewer depict if the accident happened at night or during the day. A trend seemed to form near the intersections of busy streets but it was still hard to see if there were any “out of the ordinary” circumstances. For this reason alone, the GIS Department recommended that at the end of each year the data be represented as graduated symbols for the amount of accidents occurring in the same location rather than single points for every single accident (for example, large circles for a high accident count and small circles for a low accident count). This made it easier to discern which areas of town had the more accidents than other parts of the village and was well received by the Police Department. By using this methodology, the final map product was much easier to read and allowed the Police Department to easily target which streets required more attention for traffic safety studies.
Since the inception of this project, the analysis has been performed every three months and all maps are immediately submitted to the Police Department for review. Thus making it easy to see how recorded accident reports from the Police Department’s records can be used with the tools of the Geographic Information System in order to make graphical data that can simply be analyzed.
The Glenview Police Department relies on incident mapping for home and auto theft to assist with identifying hotspots, in hopes of deterring future criminal activity. Geographic Information System (GIS) can help provide a dynamic and a static view for incidents\hotspots throughout the community. One of the main components of making this system work is providing and maintaining all GIS data for the Dispatch\mapping software and hardcopy maps that display incident location, date, time, and high areas of criminal activity.
With the readiness of the GIS data\maps for the incident mapping and Dispatch\mapping software the officers are now able to patrol beats more effectively and efficiently. This considerably streamlines the workflow procedure. Supervisors and officers will now have more up to date and improved information in the field.
Designing and maintaining the GIS data for the Dispatch software and static maps allows the Police Department the ability to more successfully fight criminal activities.
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
Almost every day of the week, police officers are called to the scene of a traffic accident to provide assistance. More often than not, these officers report to a street intersection rather than an address along a residential street. But how many times does a police officer report to the same intersection? Moreover, are there trends occurring for high traffic volume intersections? These were the sorts of questions the Traffic Safety Committee of the City of Park Ridge aimed to study. In addition, the committee wanted to analyze how many accidents per month were happening at each intersection. Furthermore, they needed and easy method for displaying these results to the whole committee.
With these ideas in mind, the Traffic Safety Committee requested the services of the Geographic Information System (GIS) Department. By using the tools located within the GIS, each intersection accident that was recorded by the Police Department could easily geocoded to a geographical location. Geocoding is an operation that searches a street or address data file and locates the coordinate where an address falls on a particular street, in this case, the tool located the intersection where the accident occurred.
Once the intersections are located, they are placed on a map in order to analyze where the most accidents occur. The GIS Department recommended representing each the number of accidents at each intersection as a graduated symbol. This made it easier to discern which intersections had the more accidents than other intersections (for example, large circles for a high accident count and small circles for a low accident count). By using this methodology, the final map product was much easier to read and allowed the Traffic Safety Committee to easily target which intersections required the more attention for traffic safety studies.
Since the inception of this project, the analysis has been performed every three months and all maps are immediately submitted to the Traffic Safety Committee. Overall, it is easy to see how by taking data from a simple recording project and using Geographic Information System tools to analyze the data, the city was able to continue providing their residents with the service of traffic safety.
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.
All Elk Grove Village police incidents are reported and captured in a database where they can be managed over time. The introduction of GIS in the village has provided the police department an opportunity to enhance their perception and understanding of the distribution of incidents by visually placing them on a map.
Since November of 2008, the police department has provided a monthly report of various incidents that have occurred. An address or street intersection is used to locate each reported event. Incidents being mapped include motor vehicle burglaries, residential burglaries, juvenile nuisance, criminal damage to property, thefts, stolen vehicles, traffic crashes, and hit and runs.
While viewing these map products it becomes apparent where incidents are being repeated. Geographic analysis allows for consideration of adjacent facilities, institutions, and natural features such as parks and schools that may influence these activities. Displaying this information by police beat provides additional evaluation of how active each area is and if personnel need to be distributed differently throughout those beats. The report information includes the time of the incident which could also provide insight into which areas may benefit from patrol at certain times of the day.
A chart is also developed to track the quantity of incidents over time. The chart is updated and provided every month and shows trends in the number of incidents that have occurred. Reviewing this chart provides an additional resource to consider the other factors that contribute to the police incidents. For example, the relationship between car accidents and the winter weather season or the correlation between juvenile nuisance and summer vacation from school can be inferred because those circumstances are limited to a certain part of the year. Over time, this chart could potentially provide a measure of police performance if incidents are being mitigated more effectively.
Recently a half year evaluation was conducted by compiling the data for the first six months of the year. The resulting products highlight the locations that are seeing repeated incidents and may validate a need for increased police presence.
As previously mentioned, these products have just begun to provide for increased understanding of these events and the use of GIS will continue to support the Elk Grove Village Police Department by providing decision support tools and analysis materials.
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 Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie opened its doors to the public in April 2009. Dignitaries from around the world attended the opening, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton as the keynote speaker. The opening ceremonies were attended by an estimated 12,000 people. Planning for an event like this is a difficult endeavor because timing, placement and communication all need to be shared throughout each participating agency.
The Village of Skokie’s Geographic Information System (GIS) played and integral part during security planning for this event. After meeting with members of the Village’s Police and Fire Department, it was determined that using the Village’s GIS would be beneficial to Public Safety by providing detailed imagery of the location with strategic locations of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Police personnel overlaid on the imagery. Local, county, state, and federal agencies were all involved in this event creating the need for impeccable communication. Coordinating loading zones, parking, street closures, and agency responsibility is where GIS became involved. Highlighting each specific agency’s position and being able to overlay it on the aerial photograph proved beneficial in planning this event. Large maps were produced and handed out to each agency during the planning phase and for use during the event.
Event planning is not a simple task. When crowds reach into the thousands, safety becomes a major concern. GIS allowed the Skokie Police and Fire Departments to provide and share a wealth of information to their county, state and federal counterparts, creating a safe environment while preparing for the worst case scenarios.
The Village of Norridge is unusual in the fact that street parking is allowed on nearly every street within the village. Any person can park their car on a village street except for certain sections being designated “Resident Parking Only,” meaning that a village sticker is required to park a vehicle on that section of a street. The village created these restrictions based on a few factors. For example, many of the residential streets near the Harlem and Irving Park Shopping Center are marked as resident only to stop overflow shoppers from the mall taking spots needed by the residents. Streets near Norridge Park are deemed “resident only” to allow residents to park on their streets when there are popular events held at the park creating an overflow from the parking lot located within Norridge Park. The village requested a map to show all “Resident Only” parking so that village employees would no longer have to sort through the ordinances to determine the specific locations and restrictions.
A resident only street parking layer was created and then broken down according to the village ordinance. Each area was then categorized based off specific restrictions such as Memorial Day – Labor Day and Monday – Friday, detailed in the ordinance. The map was then printed and posted at the front desk in the village hall so that it could be referenced whenever a resident calls or stops in. The map was also posted as a PDF on the village website, so that anyone could access the map and print it at their convenience.
Although the information for “Resident Only” street parking existed already, GIS allowed the information to be more accessible. Instead of wasting time sorting through ordinances, village employees and residents can reference a simple map.
Making sure that all residents feel safe within their place of residence is a service that a Police Department takes satisfaction in providing. The act of fighting burglary crime can be categorized as a part of providing this important service. The Police Department for Village of Morton Grove decided that to be able to analyze when burglaries were happening as well as where they were happening might help to establish a trend in crime activity. Moreover, being able to identify a trend in burglaries would give the Police Department a better idea on how to fight it. This is where the Police Department decided to enlist the services of the Geographical Information Services (GIS) Department in order to help them map out where these burglaries were occurring.
When a burglary or attempted burglary occurs within the Village of Morton Grove it is first recorded by police officer on duty and transferred to a spreadsheet that can be submitted to the GIS Department. The main identifier that allows the GIS Department to map out these burglary locations is the address that is initially recorded by the police officer. The recorded addresses entered into the spreadsheet also include the date and time of the incident, as well as if the burglary occurred to a residence or a commercial property or was only an attempted burglary. Having these attributes would eventually provide more information to the visual component once it is mapped out by representing each incident based on its specific characteristics. This in turn would allow the Police Department to analyze where the most crime was occurring.
By using the tools located within the GIS, the addresses that were recorded for each burglary incident could easily be assigned a geographical based on a process called geocoding. Geocoding is an operation that searches a street centerline data layer and locates where an address falls on a particular street within a specific block. Once these addresses are located, they are then placed on a map in order to analyze where the most incidents occur. In addition to plotting the burglary locations by the month, the village decided that an added benefit would come by mapping out these incidents per year. This type of analysis has allowed the Police Department to locate the most problematic areas of town and decide what type of action they would want to take in order to prevent future burglaries from happening.
Since the inception of this project, the analysis has been performed every three months and all maps are submitted to the Police Department immediately. All in all, it is easy to see how taking data from a simple spreadsheet and using it within GIS has converted a simple recording project into an analysis tool that the village can ultimately use in order to continue provide their residents with the service of safety.
The Village of Lincolnwood uses Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) from New World Systems which allows Police dispatchers to log emergencies and look up the necessary information to fulfill the emergency request. Technology has allowed the Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) to be integrated into this process. The GIS portion of the CAD program allows dispatchers to search addresses and verify that an address exists within the community. In doing this, dispatchers can confirm that a location is serviced by their department, find what police beat/subbeat the location is in and see which officer is closest to the scene.
Creating a way for dispatchers to easily locate an area is imperative to the timely response during an emergency. It also helps to visually see the queried address on a map to easily locate the area in which the emergency is taking place. This method saves time from finding an address on a paper map. Digital maps that are used by the dispatchers also incorporate aerial photography. This allows dispatchers to see in the field, without leaving the dispatch office.
The use of the Village’s GIS has helped the police locate areas and find information in a timely manner. When people have emergencies, time is everything and GIS provides a way to easily find the important information to help provide a safer environment for residents.
Every month, the Crime Analyst for the Village of Wheeling Police Department provides a report detailing all criminal incidents within the village for the preceding month. These reports typically include charts displaying each incident as well as the different crime type frequencies from one month to the next. In addition, the reports also include maps showing the location, type and shift of each incident. With no mapping software available, the crime analyst created these reports using a combination of free programs and software. The result of these methods was very labor intensive resulting in increased time consumption as well as limitations on the amount of the other work that could be completed on any given day.
The Village of Wheeling Police Department requested that a process be instituted that would allow the Crime Analyst to create the report maps more efficient and timely manner. It was requested that the maps be in PDF format and that they could accommodate all possible crimes and incidents. Moreover, the maps were to be maintained by the Police Department with support from the GIS Department when needed.
With this criterion in place, the GIS Department decided to create a database that would allow for the Crime Analyst to load in crime incident data each month so that the report maps could be continuously updated. The database included the details and location of each incident as well as a four digit Illinois Uniform Crime Report Offense Code. A set of symbols was then created with each symbol referencing the four digit crime code allowing for each incident to have its own unique symbol.
It was also decided that the final map product would allow for the Crime Analyst to load the most recent crime data into a database and then map all the incidents at once using the GIS’ ability to map locations based on an address. In addition, when each location is mapped out it will automatically be assigned a symbol based off the four digit crime code and the shift. This eliminated the need for the Crime Analyst to map each incident individually by hand thus transforming the old methods into a less time consuming process. From there, map templates representing each police beat were created that allowed the Crime Analyst to export each map to a PDF format as soon as the incident data is loaded into the program. This in turn eliminated the need for the Crime Analyst to zoom in and out to create legible maps once again saving time as well as eliminating the chance of error.
Although the preceding non-GIS method of creating maps for the police report was effective, it is easy to see that with the use of GIS technology the Crime Analyst was able to create the monthly reports in less than a day compared to the four days required using the previous methods.
The use of Geographic Information System (GIS) to understand spatial patterns of crime and criminal behavior has become more prevalent in recent years. The recent introduction of GIS and reporting software has made this type of analysis increasingly easier. Every several months the Police Department for the Village of Glenview receives updated maps showing the location and time of residential and automotive burglaries along with summary statistics. Looking at the addresses spatially allows for the detectives to put together possible patterns in criminal behavior.
It is important to note that because the village uses New World Systems for its dispatch and records keeping software. The GIS and New World Systems is integrated making mapping quick and efficient. The software uses the GIS data to show squad cars where an emergency is as well as logging that emergency into a records database. Using these records the GIS Department and Police Department add the data to a map providing a spatial context not always readily apparent when responding to burglaries. By mapping and cataloging incidences, patrol adjustment may be modified to ensure that problematic areas are receiving increased resources (i.e. more patrols, increased frequency of patrols). The inclusion of graphs and charts also gave other police department staff personnel such as detectives a historical understanding of where crime has happened as well whether the burglary was categorized as either residential and/or automotive.
In the past this type of analysis was done on large village wide maps with push pins where the data could not be easily shared or emailed. Now with an integrated records/dispatch system and a proper GIS quick analysis of historical and current data displayed on a fully customizable and accurate map becomes much easier.