Critchlow Limited | Local Government Mapping/GIS Solutions

WHY

Local Government

Wanganui District Council

Using MapInfo's Exponare to provide instant public access to map-based information.

Challenge
To find a more cost-effective way to distribute map-based information.

Solution
A map-enabled Internet portal using the Exponare suite of location-based information applications. Providing faster and more cost-effective access to maps and linked database information.

"Our online information service using Exponare saves everyone time and money. Our clients now have all-hours access to the map-based information they want, without the need to visit us in person. This substantially reduces the workload of our front office staff."
Darryl Couper, GIS Administrator, Wanganui District Council

Summary
Wanganui District's 46,000 residents and numerous businesses are served by the Wanganui District Council which provides services across the 2,373 square kilometres under its administration. The internal use and public provision of maps detailing the urban, rural and hinterland regions of this diverse district are essential components of the Council's operations.

Records:
Up until the early 1990s all of the Council's mapping records were contained in paper-based files. However the burgeoning growth of Wanganui's residential, tourist and commercial environments demanded that a more efficient and more cost-effective system be introduced.
"Our growing resource of paper maps and records was not only taking up an increasing amount of space, it was clearly an inefficient way to handle such important documents," said Darryl Couper, GIS Administrator for Wanganui District Council. "So we set about looking for a computer-based alternative system."
In 1994 the Council put MapInfo Professional digital mapping application through its paces to assess its suitability. "Compared with other mapping products on the market, MapInfo Professional was clearly ahead of the rest from our perspective," said Couper. "So we installed this solution and found that it not only saves us paper and space, it makes information easier to access and maintain. "Its digital format also allows us to examine map information in layered details, one layer on top of another and can reveal patterns and trends in data that don't show up in our spreadsheets and graphs."

Challenge
With the successful implementation of MapInfo Professional as the Council's core mapping solution for internal use, Couper and his team began to examine the idea of offering a similar computer-based service to the general public.
"Our staff were having to serve an increasing number of people seeking map-related information," he said. "These were businesspeople, residents and tourists - all wanting maps of the region for a whole range of different reasons. But this was an inefficient use of our people and the searching, printing and physical handling of maps was time-consuming for everyone involved."
To alleviate pressure on front desk staff and make the task of map acquisition faster and more convenient for clients, the search for the best software solution began.

Solution
Couper and his GIS team decided that an online mapping portal would best suit the needs of their clients so they proceeded to examine how other organisations used and presented this type of information.

The MapInfo Exponare solution utilises MapXtreme.NET, an add-on solution that provides additional and enhanced functionality for MapInfo Exponare Public. The team also carried out additional customisation of the systems web pages and provided advice to the IT team during and post implementation.

"After trialling it for a while, we believed that Exponare fulfilled our requirements and that it was data-compatible with our other software - and importantly, intuitive and easy to use for both staff and clients."

Because Exponare is developed on MapInfo's .NET platform, Couper said that the solution is as easy to setup as it is powerful in its operation. Installed in just a couple of hours, the Wanganui District Council's new map-based information system was tested and online within a couple of days.

The choice and number of menu items offered by Exponare is virtually unlimited. However to keep the system simple for all users, eight high-level menu categories act as gateways to the Wanganui area information offered on the Internet. These include urban and rural area maps, planning zones, utilities, topographical and property enquiry maps.

Users can move across the various maps at will and, through point-and-click querying, have access to linked database information. This includes area and street names, as well as the location of utilities such as fire hydrants.

Zooming in reveals progressive layers of detailed information which would not be available via a single print-out of the same area.

According to Couper, "Some information for these maps is held in our corporate database within a third-party application called Proclaim. However the related data moves seamlessly between Exponare and Proclaim - in both directions. This happens because both of those applications adhere to industry standards for data exchange."

The people accessing the online mapping facility are many and varied. Solicitors and real estate agents find it particularly useful when informing prospective clients about the location of properties available in the area. Road maintenance crews and emergency service personnel use the online mapping for locating a particular address or utility.

Hikers and other visitors to the area use the map-enabled portal to make detailed itineraries, well ahead of their arrival.

"Without advertising the service in any way, we soon found that our online mapping service was receiving a substantial number of hits from all sorts of people," Couper said. "The service is available via any Internet Explorer-equipped computer so we find people browsing our maps from overseas locations as well as within New Zealand."

Access to all sections of the mapping portal is currently free of charge but there are plans to provide fee-based commercial information. "Building on the portal's current success, stage two will provide professional organisations with a whole lot more map-based information which will be linked to our corporate database," said Couper.

"From our perspective, Exponare has lived up to its promise as a cost-effective online mapping solution that is as easy to setup as it is to use. This software suite is powerful, well-supported by MapInfo and comes with excellent, easy to follow documentation."
Darryl Couper, GIS Administrator, Wanganui District Council.