GIS Put to the Test in Urban Planning
As pressure continues to grow on cities and counties to do more with less, GIS must prove its worth.
By J.D. Wilson

After a quarter century, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have proven themselves a valuable and necessary tool in the urban planning toolbox. In the '90s, they are being put to use and put to the test like never before.
      Pressure continues to grow on cities and counties to do more with less. GIS must prove its worth by supporting government agencies and public works as they downsize, reorganize, reduce operating budgets and still try to provide the services citizens demand.
      "Most cities with a population of 50,000 or more have some sort of digital mapping system that has grown into a GIS," observed Ray Mann, senior vice president of business development and contracts for Analytical Surveys Inc., Colorado Springs, Colo.
      In the move to downsize government, Mann said, municipalities and counties must figure out how to continue to provide services with fewer people and less money.
      "Staffing and funding are on the decline in most cities, while the demand for efficiency and quality is increasing," Mann said. "There's a great emphasis on customer service now."
      He explained that the drive to implement GIS came first from the planning departments. "Planning agencies were always on the forefront, they quickly learned the power of GIS," he explained, "but usually they had less money, so the systems tended to gravitate to the public works departments where the nature of the projects and size of the budgets could better support their development." Mann cites two examples of cities in which GIS plays an important role to solve different problems.
      Buffalo, N.Y. has experienced a significant decline in population and tax revenues. In 10 years, Buffalo's population has dropped from 650,000 to about 300,000. "They can't even deal with infrastructure issues anymore," Mann explained.
      He said the city is using its GIS to study its situation and develop strategies to attract business and residents back to the city.
      In Prescott, Ariz., the problem is just the opposite. With one of the fastest growth rates in the nation, city planners need fast turnaround to keep up with the demand by developers. The growth puts tremendous strain on their drive to increase public services to meet needs. Furthermore, they are struggling hard to keep their planning ahead of the growth.
      "There's no time for five-year master plans," Mann said. In response to the rapid growth, the city and surrounding Yavapi County use GIS to develop an ever-evolving plan that will help meet the demand for growth and provide for the long-term quality of life in the area.

A Maturing Technology
Terra Surveys' Rick Hudson, agrees. "Most cities have gone through the transition from paper to digital maps, but they're still coming to terms with the changes," he said.
      Hudson pointed out that cities are under increasing pressure to balance their budgets. "They're always looking at the bottom line," he said. "Urban areas generate a tax base, so they are often working to improve their records in order to improve the associated tax revenues."
      Fortunately, GIS has evolved substantially over the last five years and is, for the most part, up to the task. Now, municipal GIS users are focusing their attention on the task of refining and improving their systems.
      "They're incorporating historical data into a common reference frame," Hudson explained. "But along with integration comes a discovery that all their data sets don't agree." It takes a lot of effort to resolve the differences.
      "GIS has gone a long way in helping standardize public map sets," said David Nale, president of Aerial Data Reduction in Pittsburgh. "Each department used to have its own database, and tended to be jealous of its information, how it was used and who saw it."
      He explained that GIS has helped break down barriers between departments and encouraged multiple municipal departments and agencies to work more closely together. Nale sees four main trends in GIS in the '90s:
1. Continued migration from mainframes and workstations to personal computers (PCs).
2. Efforts to improve data currency.
3. Use of digital imaging systems, like satellite images and orthophotographs within the GIS.
4. Conflict between the need to recover GIS costs and public access.

Migration to PCs
Every organization these days is moving more and more of its information systems (IS) to PCs. Even computing-intensive GIS can run on the faster, more powerful PCs linked in client-server environments.
      The advantages to PC environments are two-fold. First, it significantly reduces the costs associated with hardware. Second, it gives more individuals and departments within an organization access to the GIS data.
      Software developers are responding in a variety of ways to the great PC migration. Most of the big-box GIS developers, like ARC-Info, Intergraph, GDS and Smallworld Systems, provide PC modules that enable users throughout the enterprise to directly view GIS data from their desktops and perform some of their own analyses.
      Intergraph's ambitious Jupiter project represents the pinnacle of the migration to PCs, with the development of an entirely new system, exclusively for PCs. While most systems continue to require a UNIX server and support UNIX workstations, the Jupiter family of products will be based solely on Microsoft NT standards.
      The switch to PCs has also created opportunities for traditionally PC-based systems to enter new markets. The biggest moves in this arena are coming from the ranks of CAD developers. Both AutoCAD and Bentley Systems are introducing mapping modules that will extend their CAD systems with much of the core GIS functionality.
      Bentley, for example, is the first to market. It introduced MicroStation GeoGraphics last March. The company hopes to leverage its large installed base of MicroStation CAD systems in public works and engineering departments, by providing enhanced GIS tools to meet the needs of urban planners and designers.
      With so many maps already existing in CAD format and so much new design being done in CAD systems, Bentley's integrated CAD/GIS product is attracting attention among planners and engineers looking to integrate their operations more tightly, increase communications between their departments, and eliminate duplication in their mapping and data maintenance efforts.

Achieving Data Currency
Probably the greatest effort today is going into new or more efficient ways to collect, confirm and load GIS data. Still, 60 to 80 percent of the costs associated with GIS can be attributed to this area of collecting and maintaining a reliably accurate database.
      Lockheed Martin has spun off some of its military surveillance and tracking technology to help GIS users collect and update their data.
      The Automatic Location Tracking System (ALTS) utilizes differential GPS, voice recognition software and a proprietary interface that translates the voice-input information and automatically populates a GIS database.
      According to Steve Bourgeois, Lockheed Martin marketing manager, the ALTS product represents a rapid field data collection system that can increase data collection 10- or even 20-fold. In real-world tests, with the city of Aurora, Colo., the ALTS system increased data collection from 15-20 to more than 400 entries per hour.
      In traditional field data collection, crews go into the field equipped with paper maps. They compare what's on the map against what they see in the field. These maps are then given to other individuals who sit at computer terminals all day and manually input the changes and corrections. The more people who handle the data, the more chances there are to introduce new errors.
      The process is improved with field entry systems that enable field crews to input their findings directly into laptop computers. The Lockheed Martin system accelerates the rate exponentially, because humans can talk much faster than they can type.
      With such dramatic results, some results cities and counties are already lining up to try out the ALTS system, even though its official release is still three months away.

Everyone Loves a Picture
Imaging systems continue to play an increasingly important role in the data-collection process, thanks to advances in hardware and GIS software, which make it possible to store and handle large raster images. All serious GIS programs now support some level of integration between raster and vector data within the GIS environment.
      This capability is driving the initiative by several companies, including Space Imaging and Earthwatch to develop and launch high-resolution imaging satellites. Few developments in the industry have generated as much advance interest. The first launch is scheduled for late this year.
      In anticipation, traditional aerial photography companies are responding with new products and services of their own. Terra Surveys, for example, introduced a digital aerial video system. Complete with integrated GPS referencing and automated compensations for yaw, pitch and roll of the airplane, Terra Surveys' videography captures 30 frames per second in a digital video format that can be reviewed immediately and just as easily downloaded into a GIS that supports raster images.
      Terra Survey's Rick Quinn, vice president of remote sensing and coastal surveys, says it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison between their aerial video, traditional digital orthos and satellite images, but is confident the technology provides a compelling alternative.
      "It's flown at much lower altitudes and can provide much higher resolutions," Quinn said. And, with 30 frames per second, it's less likely to miss coverage of an area due to a poor photo. Quinn said the system was more than just a new imaging system. "We come at it from a survey and mapping precision point of view," he said.

The High Cost of Public Access
One of the most recent and certainly most controversial issues emerging in the GIS arena is the question of public access to GIS data.
      The major problem lies in the cost of creating these databases. Many systems were originally justified, in part, by the anticipation of generating revenues from selling the digital data. For many municipalities that revenue has evaporated-even become a cost center-because open records statutes require them to provide the data for free or for just the cost of producing the deliverable copy.
      "It's very difficult for municipalities to keep the data current while facing the debate of giving it away due to public access laws," explained ADR's David Nale.
      To deal with the issue, Nale said, many municipalities are looking into the possibility of leasing GIS data from third party providers, like ADR, or from utilities that use and maintain the same data, but are not bound by the same public access requirements.
      "We think we started that idea," said John Veatch of Vargis LLC International, Va. "Government agencies have not been good at the data administration business. We offer them an alternative that gets them out of that business and lets them focus on what they really need to do to provide services to their citizens."
      If users take a step back, Veatch explained, they can identify that their real objective is not to collect data, but to get as quickly as possible to the stage where they can develop and use GIS applications.
      When Vargis was founded in 1995, it was built on this concept of transforming mapping data from a service to a product business. Veatch said a little less than half its revenues last year came from licensed work or cost-sharing projects with federal agencies, including the USGS.
      "Buying data as a product rather than a service gets them beyond the terminal data collection stage and into the data using stage," he said.
      Moreover, since the data is owned by a private enterprise and is licensed for use by the municipality, it has no legal mandate to provide public access to the data, or to bear the associated costs. "People in charge of administering GIS data don't want to be in the data access business," Veatch said. "Its a much greater burden than they originally imagined."
      Under the typical Vargis license, municipalities may freely distribute hard-copy maps, but may not distribute the digital files. This allows them to satisfy public access requirements, and enables Vargis to resell the digital files to other users.
      But the most compelling reason for utilities to license rather than own the data is cost. Veatch said a typical contract to acquire photogrammetry may cost $1,200 to $1,400 per tile. Vargis provides the licensed data at a mere $175 per tile, with a three year update cycle.

GIS in the Mainstream
For municipal and provincial governments, it seems GIS has made it into the mainstream. In many places, the mayor, city manager and city council have learned what GIS is and how it can benefit their planning and decision-making processes.
      "GIS is a facilitator, not the end-all," said ADR's Nale. "It's another tool in the toolbox, and cities are learning it can help them a lot if they use it properly."
      ASI's Mann agrees. "Five years ago, our clients really weren't up to speed. They were just shopping. They weren't even sure what to ask," he explained. "Now they know their priorities and they have a plan in place.
      "It's not just a gadget now, it's a bona fide tool," he added.
      And how will municipalities use GIS in the future? "I think you'll see a greater interface with the private sector," Mann said. "Developers and engineers will be first, since they already use electronic drawings and data, but eventually you'll see a GIS-based interface that includes neighborhoods and individual citizens."

About the Author:
J.D. Wilson is a freelance writer in Denver, Colo., specializing in the GeoTechnologies. He may be reached at 303-751-7636 (phone) or 303-322-3702 (fax).

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