an important resource, not only for
municipal staff but for the entire
community, the district launched
GeoWeb in 2001. The web-based
portal provides free public access to
virtually all of the district's spatial
data and maps, as well as over
13,000 engineering drawings and
more than 10,000 legal plans. It also
features several GIS applications,
including one for searching the
district's property and parks,
construction projects, census data
for every neighbourhood, natural
hazards (such as floods, wildfires and
landslides), and historical events over
the past century that have played a
significant role in the municipality's
development.
GeoWeb has increased efficiency,
reduced costs, and improved customer
satisfaction for the district. Shawn
McLeod, GIS Manager for the District
of North Vancouver, says, "If the
district were to provide this level of
service over the counter and in person,
it would add up to approximately
283 clerical hours per month. Online
access to maps, legal plans, and
engineering drawings alone saves
the district almost $61,000 per year.
GIS has enabled us to become more
efficient in our internal operations,
and allows us to provide better
information services to our citizens."
GeoWeb has become an important
tool for addressing the district's
corporate and community mapping
and information needs. The site
receives more than 175,000 visits
every year.
Platform for Communication
and Innovation
If a picture is worth a thousand
words, GIS maps are worth a million.
GIS integrates information from
various business systems and allows
users to easily search for data they
need, overlay numerous datasets, and
visualize them on a map. The system
allows them to conduct deeper and
broader analyses, enabling discovery
of new insights. It also helps them
obtain a complete picture and better
understanding of an issue or event,
and appropriately plan their actions.
The City of Toronto is another
municipality that has used GIS
effectively to improve how the
community accesses and uses city
data, and to become better connected
with citizens. In 2009, the city
launched , an
open data catalogue that allows
free access to numerous datasets
including public transportation routes,
priority investment neighbourhoods,
municipal boundaries, and utility
permits. The bulk of the data is in
geospatial context and formats that
allow the development of innovative
GIS applications.
One such application is the online
Road Restrictions Map . Built in time for
the G20 Summit held in June 2010,
the map is an accessible and easy-
to-use tool for communicating road
restrictions to the public. It helps
them find the best routes around the
city and avoid disruptions. It took
only six weeks to build the application
using GIS. The system integrates
information from several data sources,
including traffic monitoring cameras,
and delivers a visually-rich map that
displays information on ongoing
and emergency road construction,
road conditions, traffic flow and
special events taking place in the
city. Previously, this information was
published in tabular format.
The map has provided the city with
an interactive and effective means of
delivering information to the public.
It has also contributed to more even
traffic distribution throughout the
city. Since launching the application,
they have received extremely positive
feedback from users.
The city intends to continue
building a more comprehensive and
integrated geographic information
environment open to municipal users,
external organizations, other levels
of government, and the public. Dave
Wallace, Chief Information Officer
for the City of Toronto says, "GIS is
a catalyst for innovation. It supports
Toronto's vision of becoming an
enabled city, where information
technology is integrated with city
services to provide effective local
government anywhere, anytime, for
everyone."
Making Open Data
Make Sense
The value of open data is in its
usage. It increases its value the more
it's used. While open data initiatives
are encouraging, there's a cost to
municipalities to make this data
available. This is why open data is
usually in the form of downloadable
datasets such as Geography Mark-up
Language (GML), Keyhole Mark-up
Language (KML), or shapefiles. These
formats are easily consumable for
professional GIS users, but provide
little value for the general public or
non-GIS professionals.
Increasingly, municipalities
are sharing their authoritative data
with geodata aggregators or GIS
community maps programs. Not only
is this data provided freely on their
websites for download, but we now
see municipalities share their data
with the commercial sector, with more
resources and skills to add value to a
municipality's data content. Benefits
include free access to online maps
for internal and external applications
– things the municipality might not
otherwise have the time or budget to
develop on its own – as well as the
ability to off-load the infrastructure
to support online maps to a third
party, and the opportunity to engage
citizens.
Several cities including Toronto,
Kamloops, Nanaimo, and Moncton
have augmented their open data
initiatives by participating in such
a global community maps program.
The program allows the public to
access spatial data from numerous
authoritative sources, and provides
easy-to-use GIS tools for creating
their own maps and applications,
even without prior GIS training.
It promotes the development of
innovative GIS applications, from
which governments can benefit. A
good example is the Top 100 Canada's
16 Municipal World June 2011