GIS streamlines public works in two cities

GIS is emerging as a principal tool to enhance local government services delivery and manage spatial and environmental information about municipal facilities and services and their relationship to residents.

City officials of Bloomington, Ind., turned to GIS to update topological maps dating from the mid-’70s. Mapped records maintained primarily on paper, vellum and microfilm were bulky, time-consuming to find and difficult to coordinate.

Bloomington had grown substantially, and city officials needed an automated, effective approach to managing water, sewer and street infrastructures. — a system that could perform and display various scenarios relating to the city’s growth.

The city sustained annual costs of more than $350,000 using traditional maps and related geographic records, according to a feasibility study conducted by UGC Consulting in Englewood, Colo. The study further showed that GIS could cut the city’s operational costs by 25 percent over a 15-year period.

Since the GIS became fully operational in 1992, public works officials have been able to use the system to create a maintenance history of water and sewer infrastructure repairs. In the past, no records existed of improvements made by maintenance crews, but changes now are incorporated into the database, and the information immediately becomes available to a wide number of users.

“Having a single source of data with maps and other information on people’s desktops in multiple departments is the biggest benefit of the GIS,” says Bloomington Utilities Engineer Scott Dompke. The system handles infrastructure management, interdepartmental and public communications about zoning changes and new residential, commercial and industrial development.

“From the beginning, we have been selling GIS as the greatest invention in the world. People now are beginning to think in terms of GIS and how they can use it to do their jobs faster and more efficiently,” Dompke says.

In Riverside, Calif., various municipal and public works departments also joined together to develop an extensive, complex system to efficiently and cost-effectively deliver city services.

“Our problems related to managing geographic records, but our real need was to get those records into a system that would allow us to deliver basic city services more efficiently,” says Pat Hohl, senior engineer of the Public Utilities Department electrical division. Studies showed the city spent nearly $7 million annually to maintain manual records of 775 miles of streets, 800 miles of water mains, 75,000 land parcels and facilities providing 450 megawatts of electrical power. According to research consultants, automating the records system would save an estimated $2.3 million a year.

Although the GIS is still incomplete, Riverside city departments are already benefitting, according to Hohl. Digital orthophotos and the city’s landbase are being used to create base maps that can be used by contractors, thus eliminating the need to redraw maps or rephotograph the city using expensive aerial photography.

Cost savings of as much as $50,000 are possible when contractors use the city’s base maps. The computer-generated base maps, which offer information more current and accurate than manual maps, are also used in city council presentations and other public meetings.