The Village of Winnetka has been hard at work developing and fine-tuning its Emergency Event Tool for emergencies as flooding, tornadoes, blizzards and more. This tool was brought to the test on April 18th, 2013 after a major flooding event in the Chicagoland area. Winnetka was experiencing large amounts of downpour rain in a small amount of time and required the assistance of GIS and Business Intelligence to track flooding patterns and areas of concern. Through the Emergency Event Tool, the flooding was able to be further analyzed by staff.
Having an overall visual of where the emergency is happening and any patterns can lead to more efficient response times. The Emergency Event Tool is staff-controlled through an Access Database and implemented in real time mapping through Business Intelligence. With just a click of the mouse, Winnetka staff is able to view where the emergency is occurring at any moment with the most up to date information. This was proven to be essential in tracking the April 18th event. Staff was trained on how to use the Access Data Entry Form and how to report calls. Once a staff member entered an event, the Emergency Event Tool in Business Intelligence would immediately update its data. In an emergency event, having up to date information is crucial and the Emergency Event Tool does just that!
Real-time emergencies are inevitable but can be better controlled and tracked with the Emergency Event Tool. Through the analysis of events such as April 18th, the Village of Winnetka is able to develop and execute efficient policies and standards for future events.
Winter operations for local government Public Works departments involve many different tasks, from snow and ice removal to decorating for the holiday season. Often times these operations can require a significant amount of resources and man hours from department staff to complete, which can be further complicated by personnel turnover, illness, or some other event that impacts staff availability. To assist with better documenting their sidewalk snow removal routes for an easier transfer of information between staff members, the Village of Winnetka, IL Public Works department asked the village’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department to help develop a series of maps showing the different routes and highlighting certain areas that may require additional attention during a snow event.
In addition to information provided by department personnel on the location of each snow removal route, the GIS department was also provided with a series of old Computer-Aided Design (CAD) drawings to use as a starting point for developing the requested series of maps. Using both these sources, and existing sidewalk data that was already available, the GIS department staff was able to extract out the necessary sidewalk features that are associated with each removal route and develop a series of color coded maps that highlight each removal area as well as areas of additional concern (i.e. areas of steep incline, etc). After a thorough review of the maps, the Public Works staff approved the new products and implemented them into a snow removal map book that is now available in every department plow truck and snow removal vehicle.
Having this resource moving forward will make it easier and less time consuming to communicate removal routes to new staff or existing staff that needs to fill in on a route they are unfamiliar with. By transferring the sidewalk snow removal information to a visual medium, the Village of Winnetka Public Works Department now has a more efficient and standardized resource for communicating information between department personnel.
The Insurance Services Office (ISO) is the fire industry standard bearer for developing and implementing risk mitigation standards that local and regional fire departments use for managing their internal assets, requesting capital improvements, and providing training to department personnel in an effort to reduce the over risk of fire-related problems within their respective response areas. Every ten years, the ISO conducts a department audit to measure how equipped the department is in handling a fire event and to determine the level of risk they carry based on certain criteria, such as number and location of available hydrants and the condition of the department’s vehicles. For the Village of Winnetka, IL Fire Department, this audit was recently conducted and, in order to help display some of the available department assets and other functions the department is capable of, the department turned to the village’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Department to assist with developing a series of maps that were provided to the ISO auditor to use as a visual review tool.
Some of the map products requested by the department include fire hydrant location and flow rate maps, building sprinkler system installation maps, and vehicle drive time and standard of coverage maps that were used to show the area covered by the department’s vehicles within a certain period of time. For the drive time and standard of coverage maps, the department provided the GIS Department with the standard response time they use to measure against for response efficiency, less than 4 minutes, and asked that several maps be generated showing both the total area that could be covered by the department vehicles and how far they could cover within the specified time. The data for these maps was created in less than a day using a road network analysis tool available in the GIS software used by the village GIS personnel and all maps were completed and made available for review by the ISO auditor within two weeks of being requested. Without GIS, this process would have taken considerably longer and may not have been completed in time for the department’s audit, which would have put the department at a disadvantage for being able to convey the information they wanted to share.
Using GIS to assist with the Fire Department’s ISO audit gave the department staff a collection of powerful visual tools that provide proof that the department has taken the necessary steps to mitigate fire risk within the village and is properly equipped to respond to fire events. Without using GIS, while some of the requested information could be provided, the amount of time needed by department staff to compile that information would be significant, which could result in a delay in the audit’s completion or, in the case of the vehicle drive time maps, prevent the department form providing the auditor with vital information regarding the department’s response capabilities.
Leveraging geospatial technology to make a department, or departments, within municipal government more efficient can take on many different forms. For the Village of Winnetka, IL Community Development Department, this involved integrating scanned zoning variance documents with an existing GIS mapping application and using the application’s address search tool to locate the documents. These efforts involved working closely with the Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) department to ensure that the scanned documents were properly linked to the correct locations in the village so they could be easily searched.
The first step in managing this type of external data integration is making sure the data in updated in a timely manner, to make sure that the searchable data is current and provides the most benefit to the department. To that end, a process was setup where department staff notifies the GIS department when a new document is scanned, which ensures that there is no lag time between when the document is available and when it can be accessed via the GIS application. The next step in this process was to create the links between the documents and their associated spatial locations. This was done by having the GIS department map a list of variance document locations provided by Community Development and, within the GIS data, link the mapped location to the village network drive where their associated scanned variance documents are stored. The final step was to take the mapped, linked GIS variance data and add it to the GIS application as a spatial layer that can be turned on and off for display as needed.
By providing the Community Development Department with a spatial interface to search and reference scanned zoning variance documents, GIS has provided a more efficient solution for retrieving department files. The previous method for locating these documents involved searching a village network drive for the correct scanned document, which was disruptive to the department workflow and often difficult to navigate. Using an existing, spatial platform, the department has leveraged available geospatial technology to make better use of staff time and available village resources, which has, in turn, made the department more productive and cost effective.
Technology can be used to assist local government in many different ways. For the Village of Winnetka, IL, their investment in technology includes a Geographic Information System (GIS) program that provides all village departments with maps, analysis results, and data that assists with day to day operations and future planning efforts. Traditionally, access to the village’s GIS data, and the ability to analyze it, has been limited to those who are trained on how to use a high end GIS software program, which can both cost prohibitive and technically challenging to implement as a tool for all village staff. However, with the development of a web-browser based GIS viewer application called MapOffice™, all staff now has the ability to view all GIS data collected by the village, as well as conduct basic analysis of certain data to gather more in-depth information about a particular assets or process.
A recent analysis of village assets conducted using MapOffice™ involved the village’s Public Works department, which used the application to conduct a sewer system flow analysis live during a meeting with a firm that is conducting a sewer system flow monitoring study for the village. During the meeting, the Public Works Director was able to use MapOffice™ to highlight areas that the village wanted to include as part of the flow monitoring study and, using a sewer system tracing tool, trace how each area was connected within the entire system and where the flow for each study area started and ended. By conducting this analysis during the meeting, using existing village data and an existing tool available to all village staff, the Public Works Director was able to clearly display which areas he wanted the firm to focus on for the study and saved the village time and money by not having the firm conduct the same flow analysis prior to starting the flow monitoring study.
By making GIS more available through a commonly used medium (i.e. a web browser), the ability to access and analyze village assets is now possible to all village staff. Increased access to this information now allows all departments to leverage the village GIS data to make more informed decisions that are saving time and reducing the need for extra expenditures to produce the same level of results.
Maintaining a record of building permit applications is important for local governments as both a historical reference for work that was authorized for a given project and as a reference in case the work that was completed is ever disputed. To make access to these applications easier for all departments, the Village of Winnetka, IL Community Development Department requested that the paper building permits they have on file be scanned into an electronic format. To assist with providing access to the scanned permit files, the village’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department linked the permit documents to the spatial location they applied to and made those links available as part of the village’s internet-browser based mapping application.
Distributing the connection to each scanned document through a spatial platform provides an intuitive interface for village staff to query and locate the exact permit application they’re looking for. Within the mapping application, a user can search for the address the permit was issued for, turn on the spatial layer developed by the GIS department that contains the document link, and click on that link to open the scanned file for viewing. By making the permits accessible through an intuitive application that’s already used by all departments, the village increases its overall efficiency by opening up access to the permits, as well as saves time and money by not having to coordinate a network location to store the files or invest in document management software to distribute the information.
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.
The primary responsibility of all local government public safety agencies is to understand the location and extent of their designated response coverage areas, especially when it comes to providing mutual aid support across municipal boundaries. In many cases, knowing this information before responding to an emergency call can make the difference between a response ending in success and a response ending in tragedy. For the Village of Winnetka, IL Fire department a recent change to their response coverage grid numbering system lead them to collaborate with the village’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department to redesign the department fire grid map that is used both internally by department staff and provided to surrounding communities to assist with mutual aid support.
The primary component of the map redesign was to determine the new grid numbers and to update the grid boundaries to accurately reflect the established response areas. As part of this review, it was discovered that the existing map was inaccurately showing that the village was responsible for an area that had previously been annexed into a neighboring community, which could have lead to a miscommunication in who should respond in an emergency situation. Making sure issues like that were resolved and accurately reflected on the map is critical to the success of the new grid implementation and, ultimately, the map’s usefulness to the department. By correcting inaccuracies in the Fire department’s grid system, and using GIS to create an accurate and easy to understand map reflecting the corrections, the village has improved the overall safety of its residents by removing potential confusion between mutual aid departments regarding who should respond to certain locations within the village limits.
Seasonal operations planning is a process all municipalities, large and small, must deal with throughout the year. Whether it’s ordering salt for the winter months or flowers for the spring plantings, all municipalities are involved with planning out their process for providing seasonal services. For the Village of Winnetka Public Works department, snow removal has always been one of the primary services included in its winter operation plans. In past years, the snow removal maps used by the plow operators have been maintained in a Computer Aided Design (CAD) based system, which has proven difficult to update and maintain. In an effort to improve map maintenance and currency, the department asked the village’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department to assist in recreating them to both update the mapped routes and make the mapping process more efficient.
In addition to providing an administrative advantage for overall planning, having “easy-to-update” maps creates an operational advantage by providing a consistent tool for any truck operator who is not familiar with his assigned route. Developing the maps in GIS allows for duplication and redundancy with the mapping, resulting in a much easier process for printing off new maps as needed. By converting the village’s snow removal route information to GIS, the Public Works department has improved its winter operations planning efficiency and developed a more stable operational resource for the truck operators. For these reasons, the department has decided to use GIS as its primary medium for maintaining this information moving forward.
For local governments, updating and replacing components of publically funded services, such as utility systems and roads, is critical for maintaining the overall well being of the community and the happiness of its residents. One example of how a community can determine which component of a system may need to be replaced is by tracking breaks that occur within the water system mains. For the Village of Winnetka, IL Water and Electric Department, tracking this information is critical when developing a construction budget from year to year and for highlighting potential problem areas that may require future improvements. To assist with determining which water mains should be considered for replacement in the most recent budget year, the village Geographic Information System (GIS) department was asked to generate a map highlighting all the mains in the village that had recorded breaks over the past 25 years.
Using previously mapped water main data and the recorded water main break locations, the GIS department was able to link individual main break records to specific water mains. Once the break records were linked to the main data, the number of breaks per main could be calculated and used for mapping across the village. An additional component that needed to be considered as part of the budgeting process was past water system improvements that were not captured by the raw main break data. By factoring in system mains that were already replaced or repaired during previous years, the GIS department was able to filter out numerous main breaks that would have otherwise been included in the analysis, thereby providing a more accurate product that reflected the true number of breaks within the system.
Using GIS to analyze the water main break information tracked by the Water and Electric department provided a powerful analysis and visualization tool for viewing this information across the entire village. Providing a spatial, easy-to-understand final product allowed department staff to make more informed decisions regarding the next year’s construction budget, leading to more responsible fiscal spending and better resource management.
For local governments, updating and replacing components of publically funded services, such as utility systems and roads, is critical for maintaining the overall well being of the community and the happiness of its residents. One example of how a community can determine which component of a system may need to be replaced is by tracking breaks that occur within the water system mains. For the Village of Winnetka, IL Water and Electric Department, tracking this information is critical when developing a construction budget from year to year and for highlighting potential problem areas that may require future improvements. To assist with determining which water mains should be considered for replacement in the most recent budget year, the village Geographic Information System (GIS) department was asked to generate a map highlighting all the mains in the village that had recorded breaks over the past 25 years.
Using previously mapped water main data and the recorded water main break locations, the GIS department was able to link individual main break records to specific water mains. Once the break records were linked to the main data, the number of breaks per main could be calculated and used for mapping across the village. An additional component that needed to be considered as part of the budgeting process was past water system improvements that were not captured by the raw main break data. By factoring in system mains that were already replaced or repaired during previous years, the GIS department was able to filter out numerous main breaks that would have otherwise been included in the analysis, thereby providing a more accurate product that reflected the true number of breaks within the system.
Using GIS to analyze the water main break information tracked by the Water and Electric department provided a powerful analysis and visualization tool for viewing this information across the entire village. Providing a spatial, easy-to-understand final product allowed department staff to make more informed decisions regarding the next year’s construction budget, leading to more responsible fiscal spending and better resource management.
Any storm event that disrupts day to day operations can often spur local government to investigate solutions to help mitigate future problems. After a major emergency event that occurred on July 23rd 2011 caused significant flood damage to the Village of Winnetka, IL, the village’s Public Works Department began looking at options for improving its storm water utility system to help reduce the impacts of future flooding. As part of the investigative process, department staff is required to present all options under consideration to the general public as a way to show progress. To assist with these presentations, the village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) department was asked to create a map showing all project locations to help provide the public with a tool for visualizing the proposed improvements.
After working with an engineering firm to determine areas of need and design the new storm water system components, the Public Works staff provided the GIS department with each project location and requested a map product that was easy to understand in order provide the public with a preview of the changes without confusing things with too many details. Using a basic street map of the community, the project streets and the surrounding areas impacted by the proposed construction were highlighted and color coded based on the projected impact they would have on the village’s flood mitigation plan. Showing the information this way provides context for how each project will improve flood control in the village and help to reduce the risk of future flood damages.
On July 23rd, 2011, the Chicago, IL metropolitan area was hit by a storm system that resulted in extensive damage across numerous communities. As a community that received heavy flooding damage and experienced utility management issues due to the intensity of the storm, the Village of Winnetka needed to track where flooding was being reported and the nature of each report to help get a village-wide view of the total damage. To assist with this effort, the village Geographic Information Systems (GIS) department was asked to store and manage the flooding location data and develop a series of maps showing different aspects of the damage accounts as needed for reporting and analysis.
The primary sources used to develop the damage assessment database were field checks by village staff and damage claims submitted to Cook County by the residents. Using these sources, an extensive list of flooding locations, and the nature of each flooding event, was compiled and made available for mapping. Some of the products generated from the data were a basic map showing flooded properties, a map showing properties with debris piles stacked on the curb, and a map showing the extent of the flooding in one of the hardest hit areas of the village.
By storing and managing this information in GIS, the village now has the ability to develop powerful visual tools for examining the impacts of the storm, assisting with the development of future mitigation strategies, and providing the village council with evidence of how extensive the damage was in an easy-to-understand format.
During the cleanup from damage caused by emergency events, such as severe storms or flooding, there are often numerous issues that a local government needs to deal with in order to successfully recover. After a recent storm that occurred on July 23rd, 2011, the Village of Winnetka, IL was hit hard by residential flooding and other water related problems. This forced the village’s Water and Electric Department to take an inventory of all properties in the village with electric meters installed in basements to help identify areas where restoring power service might be difficult in the future if that same property floods.
Using an existing database containing all the basement electric meter addresses, and a list of flooded properties collected during the July 23rd storm event, the village GIS (Geographic Information Systems) Department was able to map out the locations of each meter and spatially compare that to the flooded property locations. Doing this helped to identify where homes with both basement electric meters and potential flooding issues were located, allow the Water and Electric Department to assess the potential risk for these meters being inaccessible during a similar storm event.
Without GIS, analysis would have been very time consuming and would have required significant man-hours to complete. Comparing the flooding and electric meter locations spatially allowed for a quick and efficient analysis of the data, which provided the Water and Electric Department with an easy-to-use tool for assessing future risk.
While it may not occur as part of the day to day operations, an unfortunate reality for all local governments is the need to coordinate response and cleanup efforts as the result of an emergency event, such a severe storm or other natural disaster. To assist with tracking reported incidents as the result of a recent severe weather event, the Village of Winnetka, IL used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to store and display the incident locations during the event, as well map their locations to assist with the extensive cleanup efforts after the event took place.
Prior to using GIS to store and display the emergency event data, village staff would store the incident information in a variety of different mediums, including paper post-it notes, scarps of notebook paper, and non-standardized excel sheets, just to name a few. As a result, trying to coordinate response efforts was difficult, as post-its would get lost, pieces of paper would get thrown away, etc. In addition, without having a visual way to organize each incident location, departments would often duplicate efforts and send multiple response crews to deal with one incident, instead of distributing the available resources to maximize efficiency.
To help reduce these inefficiencies, the village GIS department provided a Structured Query Language (SQL) database with a Microsoft Access form front end that allowed staff to enter the information for each incident location as it was received in a standard format that could be easily accessed and reviewed by everyone involved in the response efforts. From the SQL database, each incident could be extracted and mapped in the village’s internet browser-based GIS application for all staff to see. Using this visual platform, the nature of the incident and its current status could be shared quickly across all departments, reducing redundancy and maximizing the effectiveness of each response crew.
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.
Most local governments have a council of elected community residents that help manage and vote on the policies that govern how the community operates. For the Village of Winnetka, as with any government, there is regular turnover in who is elected to sit on the acting council. After a recent election, village staff decided to use maps to help explain the operational role of each department to the new council members.
The Village GIS (Geographic Information System) department was asked to create these maps, which included a water main diameter size map, a public works facilities map, and an electric circuit map, as a tool to visually highlight the extent of individual department operations. The maps were shown to the new trustees during a tour they received of the Village facilities and helped to enhance their understanding of the services each department is responsible for managing. Having more knowledge of the services provided by the Village staff can lead to better, more informed decisions by the council in the future on the best policies to effectively manage village operations.
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.
Residential and commercial development in flood-prone areas can be a challenge to manage for many local governments. In addition to dealing with residents or businesses for permitting, inspections, etc, the federal government is also involved to ensure all construction and documentation is compliment with regulations that limit what can and cannot be built. As part of the Community Rating System (CRS), a program that allows local municipalities to show that they’ve taken efforts to mitigate potential flood damage to properties build in a floodplain in order to help reduce residents’ flood insurance rates, the Village of Winnetka Public Works department decided to map out the locations of all permits issued in areas that are susceptible to flooding to help get a better idea of the amount of construction being conducted in these areas.
To accomplish this, the Public Works department asked the Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) department to map addresses for permit applications issued in the floodplain from 2000-2010 to determine the level of development within these areas. The permit information was provided by the Community Development department and was restricted new construction or properties where significant renovations were done. Once these addresses are mapped, the data was loaded into an internet-based mapping application available to all village employees so it could be shared and reviewed by all departments involved in the CRS program. In addition to the spatial location of each permit, information on the type of permits, and if multiple permits were issued, is also provided.
The Village of Winnetka hosts all sorts of special events throughout the year. These events require the involvement and coordination of numerous village departments, including Public Works, the Police Department, and, often, outside agencies. A common outside agency that works with the village is the Winnetka Park District, which recently proposed a village-wide bike tour to help promote the village as a scenic community. To help improve the coordination efforts, the GIS (Geographic Information System) department developed several mapping products to allow all those involved to transfer event information more efficiently.
There are two maps that were developed for this bike tour: one that highlights the tour route that will be used for planning efforts between the park district and the village and one for the Police department that shows the tour route and the location of all traffic signals, stop signs, and yield signs that will be used to help the department determine officer postings during the event. Using these mapping products provides all those participating in or organizing the event with the same, geographically-based template, allowing for a more efficient transfer of information and improved communication before and during the ride.
Seasonal operations planning is a process all municipalities, large and small, must start working on as the seasons change. For the Village of Winnetka Public Works department, sidewalk snow removal has always been one of the primary services included in its winter operation plan. In past years, the snow removal area maps have been maintained in a CAD-based system, which is difficult to update and maintain. To help simplify the map update process and make it more efficient, the department asked the village’s GIS (Geographic Information System) department to recreate the maps and make them available for distribution to all plow operators.
Using GIS to assist in the development and mapping of the village’s sidewalk removal areas, the Public Works department has improved its winter operations planning efficiency and developed a more consistent operational resource for the plow operators. For these reasons, the department has decided to use GIS as its primary medium for maintain this information moving forward.
A significant part of any local government’s economic vitality relates to property development and improvements that require a building permit. Permitting fees provide vital income and can help to increase department budgets and the potential for capital improvement spending. As part of an effort to better track permit applications and highlight trends over time, the Village of Winnetka Community Development department asked the village GIS department to develop a map product to display permit locations.
All permit information for the village is stored in permit management software Permits Plus, so the first step in developing a final product is to export the desired information to a GIS compatible format, such as Excel. Once in this format, the permit data is mapped through a GIS application using the village’s comprehensive address database as a base. In addition to the location of each permit, the final GIS data layer also contains information on the type of permit issued for each address, allowing the final map product to display both the physical location and the type of permit being applied for.
Using this process, a quarterly mapping cycle has been developed, allowing Community Development staff to visualize where residential and commercial development is occurring across the village. Using this output from the GIS system provides the department with an efficient and cost effective method of tracking development trends, sharing information across departmental boundaries, and creating various budgetary reports.
Managing utility assets is a critical function of local government and can often encompass a significant portion of a Public Works department’s yearly operating budget. A specific component of utility management is addressing sanitary sewer backup issues that can cause damage to residential and commercial properties by creating standing water or sewage in basements and other areas. To assist with analyzing recent sanitary backup complaints from residents, the Village of Winnetka used Geographic Information System (GIS) to compare each backup location to village designated sanitary system maintenance zones.
The first step in this project was to map out the boundaries of each sanitary maintenance zone as determined by Public Works department staff. These zones, or sectors, relate to yearly maintenance and capital improvement areas and are used to divide the system up to help make it more manageable. By comparing these sector boundaries to the list of backup complaints, the department was able to identify neighborhoods within the village where more backups were occurring. This more refined view of the problem allowed department staff to develop more directed and efficient solutions specific to each system sector by determining if the issue was related to the age of the system in that area, poor drainage, etc.
Using GIS to analyze sanitary backup locations provided the Village of Winnetka with a powerful tool for better utility asset management. Instead of looking at the backups across the entire system, the Public Works department was able to identify specific problem areas and more effectively implement and manage proposed solutions.
Every year, the Village of Winnetka Police Department provides additional security and crowd-control support for a local church’s annual rummage sale. The sale is held on the church grounds and affects parking and traffic patterns within in the adjacent area and several surrounding neighborhoods. The size of the event requires the involvement and coordination of numerous village departments, including Public Works and the Police Department. To help improve the coordination efforts, the GIS (Geographic Information System) department developed several mapping products to allow the departments to share event information more efficiently.
There are two maps that are traditionally developed for this event, one for the Public Works department to highlight areas where they have to setup temporary signs and barricades for restricted parking in and around the church grounds and one for the Police Department showing a detailed view of the church property with officer posting locations highlighted. While all components of this event are provided in a written form to the primary departments involved, using these two map products provides a supplemental, spatially-based template that allows for improved communication and a more concise transfer of information before and during the event.
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.
For many communities, the fall season is a busy time consisting of construction projects, landscaping contracts, and other operations that relate to the changing season. For the Village of Winnetka, this time of year means performing weekly leaf pickup along all the Village-owned streets as a service to Village residents. To assist the Public Works department with their yearly leaf collection budget, the GIS department was asked to provide the total Village-owned parkway area along these streets as a way to estimate the percentage of leaves being picked up that were coming from Village-owned trees versus trees on private property.
Prior to gathering this information, the parkway areas being considered needed to be defined. For this analysis, a parkway was defined as the area of grass between the paved surface of a public roadway and the sidewalk that ran parallel to the road. With the parkway area defined, an analysis was performed using the road, sidewalk, and parcel GIS layers for the Village to extract out all those areas along a public roadway that were not included on a privately-owned lot. To complete the analysis, the Village’s driveway GIS layer was used to extract out all paved driveway surfaces where tree plantings could not occur. The resulting layer that was created allowed the GIS department to determine the percentage of Village land area contained within the parkway and provide this information to Public Works.
By using some of the basic GIS base layers for the Village, the GIS department was able to extract information on a Village-wide scale in a fraction of the time it would have taken to gather the same land area numbers in the field. Using the analysis tools in the GIS software saved Village staff time and money and provided vital information that can assist with developing more accurate leaf collection budgets in the future.
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.
Keeping a utility system running at high capacity is a major component of local government operations. Coordinating maintenance, capital improvement projects, and every day operations can be a challenging task that requires numerous man-hours to run effectively. Having an accurate spatial inventory of utility system components helps a community perform these operations more efficiently by providing a quick reference tool for checking the physical location of a feature and providing vital attribute information such as manhole depth or pipe diameter. To assist with a recent sanitary system cleaning effort, the Village of Winnetka Public Works Department requested that the GIS Department develop a series of maps to help the field crews gain a better understanding of the system before going out into the field.
Having the Village sanitary sewer assets in a GIS (Geographic Information System) system provides a spatial inventory of the system features that allowed the GIS Department to develop the requested cleaning sector maps quickly and efficiently. The alternative to developing these maps was to scan and print a series of old, hand drawn paper atlas maps, which were difficult to read and, in some cases, out-of-date. By using the more current, easier to read GIS-based maps, the field crews had a practical reference tool to use both in the office and in the field to determine the location of the pipes that needed cleaning and the extent of the area that needed work. The maps also provided pipe length and diameter information to give the crews a better idea of the types of pipes they would be working with, which saved resources and man-hours that may have otherwise been spent checking these attributes in the field.
Managing utility assets in a GIS system allows local governments to leverage their available hours and budget constraints to optimize their operations and potentially reduce costs. By providing a spatial format to review and reference utility features both in the office and in the field, the Village has a efficient mechanism for validating utility system information.
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.
Having an accurate inventory of the components that make up a municipal utility system is very important to the overall success of a city or village maintaining that utility at a high performance level. While this type of inventory has traditionally involved descriptive text information regarding a particular utility system feature, with a robust GIS system that same inventory can now contain a spatial component. By adding this spatial aspect, the municipality can better track and maintain their capital investments and the overall integrity of the system. Recently, the Village of Winnetka took advantage of its GIS system to help develop an electric pole inventory for its Water and Electric department to use for future maintenance and analysis.
Developing a utility inventory can include GIS on varying levels of involvement and complexity. For the Village of Winnetka, a basic GIS pole feature class existed prior to the current inventory, however it lacked completeness, both spatially and in attributes, and was not heavily used by the Village staff. To help make the data more complete, the Water and Electric Department hired a utility consulting firm to collect GPS field data of the village poles, using the existing GIS pole features as a base. Having an existing GIS database structure to work from, the data collection only took a few days and was able to be seamlessly transitioned from the field to the office using a simple database relationship. While the Village GIS Department did not create the more advanced inventory currently being used, it did provide the basic framework that made the data collection process run more smoothly and provides the tools for viewing and analyzing the final product.
Moving forward, the Village can now use the electric pole information to help locate potential problem areas and better plan for future enhancements or changes to the system. While the existing, descriptive text inventory that was primary being used was useful for general information about a specific pole, it did not provide a holistic view of how that information related to other assets across the Village. By integrating a spatial component, the department can now better analyze how individual parts of the system relate to each other and be more informed about the system moving forward.
Using GIS as a medium to store utility system information provides a significant advantage to governments at all levels when considering the time and money it can save in general maintenance and everyday labor. Viewing this kind of information spatially and relationally to surrounding features, as the Village can now do with its electric poles, expands the ability of both individual departments and overall government bodies to maintain higher performing systems and more provide more reliable services to their residents.
Garbage collection is an essential service provided by municipal government that, in many communities, has become ingrained in the weekly routine of community residents. While collecting garbage seems like a straight forward process, often there are weeks or months of planning that are necessary to determine pickup locations for a given route that are efficient in both time and resources. Recently, the Village of Winnetka Public Works department decided to reallocate their garbage collection pickup locations to help maximize the efficiency of each truck driver’s route. To assist with this, the Village GIS department provided support during both the planning and implementation stages of the project.
The first step in developing new garbage collection zones was to determine how the current pickup locations related to each other spatially within the Village. Prior to integrating GIS into this project, the Village used a series of address lists to determine the truck driver’s routes. These lists often had overlapping address ranges, which could lead to confusion for new or replacement drivers. This also did not provide an option for the drivers to see how the addresses were distributed in relation to each other, which could often lead to them taking an inefficient route to pickup each address. Using these address lists, the GIS department mapped out each collection area and provided a map to the Public Works department for review. The map showed the department how the driver’s routes were distributed across the Village, which allowed them to notice several inefficiencies that were not obvious using the address lists alone. Utilizing the maps, the department was able to successfully reallocate the pickup locations within the collection areas to improve both driver time and resource efficiency.
To help implement the new routes, the GIS department developed a series of smaller maps that are used in the garbage trucks to assist the driver’s in learning the new pickup locations. The maps not only help the drivers to see where new pickup locations are in each collection area, but they also allow for the drivers to see the street layout within the collection area to help determine the best possible pickup route. By combining the reallocated collection locations determined by the department office staff with the ability to see the Village streets in the surrounding area, the maps provide a powerful tool for drivers to use in determining the best collection route.
By using GIS as a tool for visualizing its garbage pickup locations, the Village has been able to improve the efficiency of the driver’s routes while not reducing the level of service provided to its residents. While the address lists used previously can still be referenced for individual pickup locations, the maps act as a supplemental, quick reference tool to see how these locations are distributed spatially across the Village.
During the winter holiday seasons, local municipalities often will setup a series of decorations or lighting displays to celebrate the holidays and provide a fun attraction for the community’s residents. While the amount of decorations on display is mainly regulated by a community’ budget, some times these restrictions can come from a lack of existing space or resources for displaying or powering a certain decoration setup. For the Village of Winnetka, this was the case for a business district area located at the northern end of the Village. While many of the businesses and residents in this area wanted to have more lights displayed in the areas numerous trees, there were not sufficient power sources available to accommodate this request. To determine the best solution for this problem, the Public Works and Water and Electric departments used GIS to assist with the planning and mapping of numerous proposed scenarios.
Before any solutions to this issue could be considered, the tree locations and existing lighting setup of the project area needed to the inputted into the Village’s GIS system. This information was provided to the GIS department by the Public Work’s Forestry division, which is responsible for ordering, installing, and maintaining the lights before and during the holiday season. Once this data was inputted, an initial map of the lighting arrangement was produced to allow the departments to review the existing lighting and determine potential locations for additional lights. From this preliminary map, three light display scenarios were developed by the Water and Electric department based on plausible sites for expanding the electric utilities in the area to provide the necessary power.
Once a final lighting arrangement was decided on by both departments, the expansion of the electric system and the additional lighting funds needed to be discussed and agreed upon by the Village Council. To assist with this, the GIS department developed two maps, one showing the proposed electric system additions and the other showing the proposed tree lightings overlaid with the existing tree lighting. By using a spatial tool to show, visually, the proposed plan for the holiday lighting in the project area, the Water and Electric and Public Works departments were able to provide a comprehensive view of the changes to the council, as well as other departments and agencies involved in the project. As a result, the proposed lighting arrangement was approved and is currently being implemented for the current year’s holiday season and into the future.
Prior to GIS being used to assist with the Village of Winnetka holiday lighting expansion proposal, the project information was stored in a series of excel spreadsheets and other document formats and was not organized across the involved Village departments. With the necessary project data now developed in a spatial framework, the Village has a comprehensive and organized inventory of both the past and future holiday lighting plans to assist with any future expansions or existing project alterations.
Utility mapping is a critical function of any municipal GIS system to help support the daily workflows of various departments, including Public Works and Engineering. While most communities are only responsible for maintaining water and sewer utility systems, the Village of Winnetka includes an electric system as a component of their standard utility maintenance. By maintaining this complex system in GIS, the department has helped to streamline their electric system inventory and improve the efficiency of both the field crews and the office staff in locating system components.
The first step in developing the village electric system in GIS was to gather the source data that would be used to build the electric network. These sources included paper CAD maps, excel spreadsheets, and even paper note cards containing various pieces of information related to system features. The primary source for getting the basic geometry of the system created in GIS was the paper CAD maps. While these maps primarily display interpretative drawings of the actual locations of electric wires and system components, they provided the basic foundation for the development of the GIS data. These maps also provided basic attributes for each feature, including circuit, phase, and voltage information, among others.
Another valuable source of information used to create the GIS electric system was the staff of the Winnetka Water and Electric department. Often the CAD maps and other data sources were out of date or incorrect based on a variety of factors and needed to be supplemented with “on-the-ground” knowledge of the system in the field. The information obtained from the department staff helped to fill in any gaps left by the paper and electronic sources and to refine the coarse accuracy of the CAD drawings to make the GIS data more spatially accurate. Without this additional knowledge, the initial development of the GIS electric data would have been much more difficult and resulted in a less reliable product.
While creating the electric system data in GIS proved to be a challenging component of the overall project, the most difficult aspect was getting the CAD-centric field and office staff of the department to accept using a new system to view their electric information. While the staff was happy to supply their expertise to the development of the data, they were accustom to using the old data formats and were reluctant to accept the new GIS data as their primary mapping tool. However, over time, the improved accuracy and reliability of the GIS data has helped to slowly transition the department to using GIS products. While the CAD maps and other data sources have not been completely abandoned as a source of information, the department has started to accept the use of GIS as an efficient solution for mapping the Village’s complex electric system and maintaining its numerous system attributes.
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.
Capital improvement projects are essential for a local municipality to maintain a good quality of life for its residents. Resurfacing roads and replacing aging utility mains provide a more reliable infrastructure for the community and ensure that residents do not experience things such as uneven roads and interruptions in utility services. Recently, the Village of Winnetka used Geographic Information System (GIS) to help with the coordinating and planning of future capital projects between various village departments to reduce project duplication and maximize project overlap.
The first step in coordinating capital project work between departments is to get the planned project information into the GIS system. Traditionally, the information for each project was stored in a “flat” excel worksheet format that provided a lot of information regarding the projects, but did very little to show their distribution across the village. To assist with spatially displaying this data, the GIS department was provided with the Public Works Department’s capital projects file, which was converted to a GIS compatible format. This consisted primarily of spatially locating the project area within a GIS map and creating a line segment feature to represent the proposed extent of the project work. Once the line segment features were created, each project could be mapped and visually analyzed against projected capital improvements planned by other village departments.
The primary department coordinating with Public Works was the Water and Electric Department. As the village water mains age, numerous breaks occur along the older lines that cause interruptions in service for residents and costly repairs for the village. To help mitigate this issue, the Water and Electric department wanted to replace the mains that had experienced the most breaks over the last decade. To avoid tearing up roads after they have been resurfaced as part of the Public Works capital improvement project plan, Water and Electric asked the GIS department to compare the existing water main break data in GIS with the recently developed capital project data layer to see where high break mains corresponded to planned road repair project areas. The resulting analysis revealed that 5 high break mains existed along proposed capital improvement roads. A map was then created that showed these main locations and included the year that the road improvement projects are planned. With this information spatially displayed together, the departments now have a tool to coordinate planning and budgeting efforts to ensure that project overlap occurs in a given year.
Using GIS to assist with the village capital improvements planning process has allowed for inter-departmental project coordination that will help reduce unnecessary and costly project duplication over the next several years. By viewing the information spatially, each department is able to see where they have overlapping project work, which, by planning the projects collectively, ultimately will save the village money on construction costs into the foreseeable future.
Special events, such as parades, concerts, and street fairs, require additional civil services from local government to ensure everything runs smoothly and efficiently. While all government departments are involved in the planning and execution of these events, the police department is responsible for enforcing city/village policies and ensuring that all participants are safe. To assist with their annual Fourth of July celebration, the Village of Winnetka Police Department started to using map products to provide more information to officers regarding the holiday’s planned events.
The Village plans three primary events for their Fourth of July holiday celebration. This includes a 5K run, parade, and a fireworks display. In the past, the Police Department issued special orders to all department members and other village departments listing the routes of the parade and 5K run, officer postings for each event, parking restrictions, etc. While these orders are helpful in providing pertinent information on police operations, they don’t provide a visual reference point of the operations to new officers or assisting officers from other communities. To help improve the transfer of information within the department and to visiting agencies, the GIS Department was asked to create a series of maps using the existing special orders documents. The maps are a supplementary tool that the department can use to improve the communication of department regulations between officers during the events.
From the special order documents, three maps were developed for the department. These maps included a parade route map, a 5K run route map, and a fireworks display operations map. While these maps are primarily intended for departmental use, a secondary function is to provide information to the general public. The maps can be posted on the Village website or in other public forums to allow residents and visitors to see parking restriction enforcement zones, road closures, and route information. Providing this information to the public allows for visitors to these events to be more informed about temporary event regulations, which helps to reduce the number of possible violations. This helps to improve the overall efficiency and operation of each event by allowing the department to focus on tasks such as traffic and crowd control rather than regulatory enforcment.
Using GIS to help develop map products for each event provides the department with a visual reference tool for conveying department regulations and policies. This helps to improve communication within the department and with the general public, which helps to ensure that each event runs more efficiently.
As the country’s utility infrastructure continues to age, many local governments will be faced with the task of updating or replacing deteriorating structures. Since this process can result in high costs for a community, many municipalities prefer to develop an infrastructure improvement plan to make sure the areas most in need get updated first. As part of the Village of Winnetka’s utility improvement plan, the water and electric department recently analyzed the structural integrity of village water mains by reviewing water main break incidents from the last 20 years.
Main break records help to identify mains that are weak or have become unreliable over time and, therefore, are in need of repair. While several department members were aware of numerous water main breaks that have occurred over the years, without a comprehensive view of the entire village, it was difficult to determine which mains should be considered high priority updates. To assist with identifying priority update areas, the GIS department used address and location information associated with each main break incident record to create a spatial layer for the water main breaks that could be mapped and analyzed in the GIS software.
While being able to spatially review the main break locations was useful in identifying general problem areas across the village, it did not help to highlight the individual water main features in the GIS that the breaks occurred along. To help accomplish this task, the GIS software allows for multiple features to be linked together using a common attribute, which can allow for information from one feature to be applied to another. For this project, both the water mains and the main break records contained a water main numbering system used by department staff to track and identify individual records. Using this numbering scheme, the break records were successfully linked to the water mains, thereby allowing each main feature to be visually identified by the number of break records associated with it.
With the main breaks both spatially referenced and linked to the existing water main features in the GIS system, the water and electric department now has an efficient tool for reviewing mains where multiple breaks have occurred. Being able to locate these high priority areas without performing time-consuming field checks has also provided a cost-savings to the department by improving staff efficiency and allowing them to focus on other tasks. Using GIS to assist with this project has improved the department’s ability to develop a more efficient water main improvement plan and provides a visual reference tool to assist with planning future improvement projects.
Many local governments face the challenge of organizing decades worth of permit, building plan and zoning variance documents in a way that will allow employees to locate them if needed. Most municipalities have these paper documents stored in boxes, filing cabinets or in some other storage container that can be a burden to search through. The Village of Winnetka Community Development Department has recently attempted to reduce their amount of paper documents by scanning new zoning variance requests into a digital, PDF format.
The ultimate goal for the department is to convert all their documents, both current and historical, to a digital format that allows for a more efficient workflow. While there are several document management solutions available for managing digital files, many are expensive and do not provide a spatial component to show the location that each document applies to. To avoid purchasing new software, the Geographic Information System (GIS) Department was asked to produce a sample project linking the existing digital zoning variance documents to the village address data and would allow for employees to retrieve documents spatially.
GIS software is not a document management tool, but it does allow for external files to be linked to spatial data using a common attribute, such as address or Parcel Identification Number (PIN) information. For this project, a data table containing all the network path information for each variance document was created and stored in a geodatabase. To create the link between the documents and their corresponding spatial features, the address information and PIN number for the parcel associated with each document was also included in the table. An existing address point feature class for the village acts as the spatial component for this project and also contains its corresponding PIN information. Thus allowing for the use of these common attributes to link these sensitive documents to their respective geographic location.
Accessing the documents from the GIS system requires a basic knowledge of the tools available in the software. Using a database relationship between the document path data table and the address point feature class, a user can query an address and open the PDF using basic GIS tools. When accessed, the software reads the network path of the document from the data table and opens the file in the standard PDF viewer software loaded on the computer. This allows for village employees to retrieve document information using a basic map interface instead of searching through numerous network folders and deciphering file naming conventions hoping to find what they’re looking for.
While PDF document retrieval and viewing can be done without GIS, integrating the functionality of accessing digital zoning variance files and linking them to GIS has helped the Village of Winnetka streamline their document retrieval workflow and help improve their time efficiency. All in all, demonstrating the effectiveness of using GIS within local government to centralize documentation and to make searching for it more efficient.
The Village of Winnetka Fire Department recently utilized the Village’s Geographic Information System (GIS) to complete a community-wide fire hydrant flow rate review. Accurate flow rate information is critical to the department for knowing how much water pressure is available from a hydrant at a given location in the village.
By assigning flow rate information to all the hydrants in GIS, this information can be easily mapped and used for reference. While the department flow rate inventory continues to be maintained using other methods in addition to GIS, such as a hydrant inventory list, being able to visualize the data spatially reduces the amount of time necessary to retrieve this valuable hydrant attribute.
To assist in the initial stages of this inventory development process, the GIS department provided a Village-wide map of fire hydrant locations with each hydrant color coded by its existing flow rate information. This preliminary flow rate data was inputted into the GIS system several years ago from multiple sources, including as-builts and CAD-drawings. Using this data as a base to work from, the Fire Department began reviewing the flow rates using a variety of methods including field checks, existing inventory lists and personal knowledge of the fire hydrants from the department’s hydrant officer.
While the main focus of the review was to update the hydrant flow rate information, the Fire Department also used this opportunity to mark up the map with new hydrants that were missing from the village’s GIS mapped water system. This information allowed the GIS department to not only update the existing hydrants but also to improve the accuracy of the water system as a whole. This system improvement not only benefits the Fire Department but also the Public Works and Water and Electric departments, which in turn reference the Village utility information in their day to day business processes.
With the review complete, the Fire Department now has a quick reference map for checking both the location and flow rate information for each hydrant in the village. It also provides the department with an easy-to-use, effective device for providing additional updates to the GIS Department in the event of future changes to the system.
By combining the existing Village hydrant inventory resources with the spatial components of GIS, the village now has a more robust flow rate reference tool. Improving the capability of the department to determine water pressure information for a given hydrant improves its ability to assist the village residents when responding to a fire emergency. Overall, it is easy to see how the GIS Department and Fire Department were able to work side by side to improve the accuracy of the water utility infrastructure that they had mapped in the GIS and what the village staff accesses on a daily basis.