CITY OF TUCSON
MAPPING THE FUTURE:
A GIS OVERVIEW
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Submitted Department Plans
1 Transportation
2 Planning
3 Police
4 Water
5 Fire
6 Library
7 Development Services
Appendices
1 IGA between City of Tucson and Pima County
2 Details of Current Technical Environment
Also see the GIS Cooperative site.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
For our community to be healthy and prosperous our government officials, business leaders and citizens must set a course of action that allows us to navigate a complex set of interrelated problems. Historically, the information needed by policy-makers has been resident throughout several jurisdictions and difficult to obtain. Geographic information systems (GIS) are the technical tools many successful jurisdictions are using to transcend and eliminate those historical barriers. In the simplest sense, GIS is a computer-based tool for mapping and analyzing the relationships between people, things and events. GIS technology integrates common computer capabilities such as query and statistical analysis with the unique visualization and geographic analysis benefits offered by maps. In southern Arizona, protection of natural desert habitat and open space must be balanced against the benefits of economic development and growth. We face the complex problem of sustaining and enhancing a quality of life that depends on limited natural resources. Such difficult decisions can not be made without understanding the interrelationship of human behavior factors, economic activity, transportation and telecommunications infrastructure and the factors effecting housing and facilities availability.
The City of Tucson has been successfully using GIS for several years. Departments that have invested in this technology and come to rely on it have realized significant tactical benefits. Unfortunately Tucson has not done a very good job coordinating the efforts of those individual departments in order to produce the enterprise level strategic reports most useful to senior policy makers.
The use of computer aided design software, a form of automated mapping, has led to considerable efficiency in City departments such as Planning, Water, and Transportation which require drafting support. This has not only improved service, but also translates in to real cost savings and cost avoidance in terms of staffing. Infrastructure or facilities management software assists staff in managing the huge inventory associated with the physical infrastructure. For instance, in Transportation, the physical inventory of the features and their location in the City's streets such as sewer manholes and lights is an important departmental tool. The task of life cycle management of large inventories scattered throughout the City (and in Water's case in the County) is made easier and more efficient through the use of technology. With the more recent advent of affordable geographic information system tools and the establishment of the base maps, City staff have started to use geographic information for urban planning, problem solving, clarifying issues, illustrating a situation, and working with the community. A few departments have begun making this kind of information available to the public via the Internet including Transportation, Planning, and Police.
Though much has been done, much remains to be done, and the City is now at a critical juncture. Many valuable sources of information are still not in electronic form, and existing databases sometimes can not be accessed easily or are without the necessary fields to relate them to a specific location for mapping purposes. Much of the earlier work done with automated technology requires updating in order to be available for use with geographic information system tools. The City of Tucson must take an enterprise approach to these tasks if they are to be accomplished in a cost-effective manner.
First, the City needs to focus on developing standards that will allow information access and use across City departments. Doing this now will avoid unnecessary work in the future and ensure that information is as widely available as possible. The informal Citywide GIS Users Cooperative should be formalized. The Information Technology (IT) Department should work with the group to establish standards for all City GIS applications and databases. The Cooperative should also review all significant GIS related projects prior to initiation in order to assess the project's impact on City goals. This is important because in addition to meeting the needs of the project sponsor often a project will produce information that is very useful to other departments.
Information Technology should provide administrative support to the cooperative including aggregating demand and scheduling training. The department should also develop the required technical expertise at the earliest possible time in order to support an enterprise GIS program. The IT Director should work with the Cooperative to educate all levels of City staff on the value of GIS and serve as a liaison between the City Manager's Office and the Cooperative. Beginning in Fiscal Year 1999-2000, a few collaborative projects that demonstrate the ability of GIS to enhance direct service delivery and contribute to the public policy process should be selected for executive sponsorship.
This report is the result of broad collaboration among those City departments already benefiting from GIS and those that appreciate the potential benefits it holds for them. It is the opinion of all those involved that the City of Tucson can benefit greatly from GIS if we are willing to invest in further integrating the significant efforts of the individual departments. There is little doubt that a comprehensive, well-coordinated approach to the use of geographic information systems and products will result in greater efficiency, improved customer service and better public policy decisions.
BACKGROUND
The definition of a geographic information system (GIS) varies depending on specific applications, but generally it is described as a computer-based system with the ability to store, retrieve, modify, analyze, and represent geographic data as useful information.
A GIS can be useful for relating mapped features and their attributes (non-graphic information associated with features) in two ways. First, the actual feature from a map, for example, a sewer manhole displayed on a computer screen, may be pointed at electronically and used to access and display all of the attributes contained in the computer's database regarding that feature. More specifically, it can show the year it was installed, its material, diameter and capacity, etc. Second, the database itself can be queried to display only those features selected in a way that may give it meaning. An example of this is choosing all parcels of land selling for between fifty to sixty thousand dollars in the last year, depicting the areas where the highest rate of real estate transactions occurred in that price range.
The ideal GIS technology is very useful, allowing the public and many different municipal departments access to the same base maps and database. This means that each department does not have to keep separate versions of other department's maps and data in order to use them for their own agency's needs. Features or attributes need to be modified and updated on only one base map and database and then be shared by everyone. Departments can portray mapped information at whatever scale they require, using the colors or symbols they want and accompany the maps with text and reports tailored to meet their needs.
It is important to remember that tools and technology have evolved over time. The evolutionary continuum of GIS tool development was described in the Planning Department's GIS Strategic Plan as follows:
- Automated Mapping (`dumb maps')
These "drawings," usually created by software originally developed by aerospace for computer aided drafting, e.g. AutoCAD, are the products most people associate with GIS, but are limited in informational context. Commonly, this level remains the most utilized level of complexity for many urban uses. The basic goal was to automate the manual production of maps and drawings, reduce redundancy, and improve precision. This technology is now universally available. Almost all cities of any size use these methods. This capacity is PC or workstation-based and is commonly the most cost-effective tier. This is a "wide and shallow" technologic state. Software costs are about $2,400 or so, with Pentium machines /plotters and drafting techs/architects running things.
Facilities Management
Utility-oriented originally, with lots of old Cobol-like productional programs for mainframes. Most of the original GIS software and hardware providers started with utilities-like clients (i.e. Houston Power and Light). This tier is more complex, costly, and limited in functionality. Much of the software is proprietary and expensive. Local users such as T.E.P. come to mind. This area might also be called: P.L.P.: `pipes, lines, and poles.' This is "narrow and deep" engineer-oriented technological state. Software and hardware cost is significant and on going. A large investment in technical support and training is required. Platforms vary from mainframes to fast minicomputers. City Transportation and Water are likely candidates for this type of GIS technology.
- Geographic Information Systems
Geographic Information Systems are the latest development in the series of systems and provide the greatest information/policy potential. Pima County and the City of Tucson have chosen a system from the Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc. (ESRI). This systems capability can perhaps best be described as "wide and deep". There are several tiers of complexity: the most expensive being Unix-driven, Arc-Info-like, highly technical shops such as found in Pima County Technical Services. Well below this is a workstation and/or PC-level platform provided by companies like: MapInfo, Atlas*G.I.S., Arc-View (the current City standard), and Maptitude. This later level can be considered "easy, wide, deep, and cheap." It is easily learned by just about anyone. Examples are found in several City departments including Police, Planning, and Economic Development. This less expensive system can produce very useful analyses and maps. However, without proper support and maintenance of the land base (the parcels of Pima County), many City projects dependant upon such information will suffer.
The City has some investment in all generations of GIS but future investment should primarily be in the "third tier" of products. Quite simply, they are easier to use and less costly to own. The City of Tucson has been using GIS applications for many years. In fact, GIS has quietly become a City workhorse by both reducing staffing requirements where planning and engineering work must be done and by providing a higher quality of information for analysis and decision-making. A number of City departments including Planning, Transportation, and Police have used GIS applications to meet service demands in a cost-effective way. Some GIS generated reports are already available on the City of Tucson's Internet WEB Page. The benefits of GIS applications to the City of Tucson are many. For example, the GIS report below (Figure 1) shows all burglaries (red circles) during a five-month period for the entire City, with City Ward boundaries showing.
FIGURE 1: CITY OF TUCSON BURGLARIES
From this, police officers working burglary investigations can begin to look for patterns in particular neighborhoods. A community member visiting the TPD Web site could determine how the problem has affected their neighborhood.
Unfortunately, in the 1980s, as a relatively immature technology, GIS was very expensive in a number of ways. The hardware and software necessary to process such large data files were very expensive, as were the tools necessary to manipulate the data effectively. In addition, the upfront effort necessary to create the base maps that are the foundation upon which other data is laid was great. The training necessary to become proficient with the tools was also extensive. These tools were not the easy, intuitive tools most people have come to know recently.
Given the great expense and technical complexity City staff was forced to begin using GIS incrementally and rather haphazardly. Fortunately, after a successful bond election, the County purchased hardware and software and began creating the infrastructure for GIS. The City departments responsible for the City's physical infrastructure were the first to get involved. The Planning Department began using AutoCAD (computer aided design) for its planning and worked to assembled base maps as well. Both Water and Transportation also began using AutoCAD for planning and design work, and Transportation developed a strong partnership with County staff and began using the County developed GIS infrastructure.
Given the expense of both hardware and software, other departments took mapping data and used other less expensive tools to meet their requirements. By the late eighties, for instance, TPD was overlaying crime information on base maps for analysis and adding census information to those same maps to apply for grants targeting special populations such as at-risk youth.
Although the use of GIS applications within the City of Tucson has already improved effectiveness and reduced costs, much more can be done, especially with the advent of less expensive hardware and software tools, the maturation of the base maps, and the growth of the City's network. The County database is available to all City departments, but few (other than Transportation) are currently taking full advantage of it. Several departments are making their own maps, although with proper coordination they might be able to use the County's maps or (if the County maps aren't appropriate) share one another's. Some departments are working from the base maps, but are modifying them with features and non-standard information that must then be update each time there are changes. There are databases across the City that could add valuable information to the efforts of many departments if common database standards were implemented.
The evolutionary continuum from automated mapping and facilities management to true geographic information systems is typical of technology in general. With it comes the difficult challenge of converting or linking old technology and associated databases to new ones in order to maximize the benefits for users across the City. The Transportation Department GIS Implementation Plan pointed out that much of the current task is to retrain mapmakers to be data managers. Simultaneously, the City must continue to convert the many existing manual processes into electronic databases available for information and analytical purposes to City staff and community members.
City staff has been working cooperatively for some time using available resources to work on these issues both within their respective organizations and across City departments. Approximately 18 months ago, GIS representatives from the departments of Transportation, Planning and Water met with a representative from the Information Technology Department to discuss GIS. They were worried about the problems that might eventually arise unless there was better GIS coordination between all City departments. The meeting resulted in the formation of an informal cooperative designed to help identify and address all GIS issues within the City: providing education, establishing standards, reducing redundancy, and pooling resources where practical. Since that time, almost all City departments have joined the cooperative and have assigned at least one person as GIS representative.
The GIS cooperative has been helpful in bringing to light the large number of GIS applications and the even greater GIS interest by City departments, but the cooperative has no official standing. The current ad hoc configuration of the group is insufficient for the long term. For example, any standards adopted by the cooperative are strictly voluntary and can be ignored at any time without penalty. This is a tenuous foundation for enterprise data sharing.
The City has invested a lot of time, effort, and money into creating its current GIS environment. Because of the City's very decentralized approach it is very difficult to estimate with any certainty how much. There are over one hundred City employees with job titles that identify them as creators and originators of maps, plans and data that is input into GIS. Without the tools of GIS, it is reasonable to project the City would require a large increase in the number of full time staff to perform the work being done today. In spite of all the people using GIS the City has not done an adequate job aggregating information and making it available to policy makers and the public. A more formal GIS cooperative could serve as a clearinghouse for such information.
GIS contributes significantly to the City's ability to deliver efficient and effective government services. This contribution is demonstrated through:
- Improved Work Efficiency & Accuracy
With the advent of GIS tools, City staff are simply able to get more done. Working from already existing digitized maps or drawings, they do not have redraw a map or area plan each time there is a change or new features need to be displayed. Once added, features and information are available for future work, thus, limiting the amount of work necessary to update for change designs, plans, maps and reports. For instance, the head of the City's Regional Planning & Research Division estimates that without GIS, the City would require 13 Drafting Technician IIIs to accomplish the same work that is currently done by 3 technicians. The estimated cost for a midpoint Drafting Technician III with salary, fringe and associated non-salaried costs is $50,456. The total cost avoidance on an annual basis is $504,560. In fact, the Planning Department has actually reduced its authorized number of drafting technicians by four positions saving $201,824 annually. By using AutoCAD Transportation and Water no doubt avoid considerable staff cost in engineering and planning.
Other City departments save time. For example, prior to the advent of automated crime analysis in the 1980s, TPD used "pin maps" to assist in seeing patterns in crimes such as burglaries. An assigned officer would stick a pin in a map at the location of each burglary - at a time when the City experienced literally thousands of burglaries. These maps would have to be tediously updated. Since the time, specific location, and date of each occurrence were not readily displayed or controlled for, these maps were not as useful in examining burglary patterns as the automated mapping done today.
Repetitious and tedious work can often lead to error. Once established, the GIS base information can be used again and again avoiding possible error. In the case of adding incidents or features, it is clear that the "pin method" and other manual efforts are error prone.
- Power of Visual Image
Much has been written about how in today's world there is so much data available it is difficult to turn it into useful information. GIS often does just that by integrating and relating spatial information obtained from diverse sources. For instance, mapping a large volume of information on risk factors for youth can reveal important patterns and relationships (Figure 2).
The City annually spends 16 million dollars on an initiative focused on Youth and Family Programming. Targeting those dollars to the most effective strategies is essential and, GIS information assists staff in recommending the most valuable approaches.
FIGURE 2: CENTRAL TUCSON
- Issue Clarification
The adage "one picture is worth a thousand words" can clearly be applied to the effectiveness of some GIS generated materials. For instance, the great community concern over environmental issues is reflected in the Liveable Tucson goal of "Clean Air and Quality Water." When problems are suspected, it can be a very volatile issue since it involves community members' and their families' health. Public officials need clear, understandable information that frames the issue. Using GIS tools, City staff is able to provide that information (Figure 3). Such a map can be used to assist City officials in working with the community and help provide an accurate perspective on the issue.
FIGURE 3: GROUNDWATER PLUME
Seven City departments responded with information about their current uses and future plans for GIS. Here is an overview of their submissions:
Transportation
Operations
Currently, the City of Tucson, State of Arizona, Cox Communications and numerous local and long distance phone providers are laying fiber in the City of Tucson's right-of-way and on Union Pacific Railroad property. The City of Tucson does not currently have a mapping system able to depict these fiber networks. A GIS layer showing telecommunications network infrastructure would be a great help to government, business and the general public. The use of existing underground conduit that could be shared with other users would save on costs and the tearing up of streets and the inconvenience to the public during construction. Systems could be expanded at less cost, providing additional services to more areas of the City in a more secure, safe and aesthetic fashion.
- Public Information
Some efforts are currently underway to provide the Tucson community information from GIS data including crime data, zoning maps, and census and neighborhood maps. In the future most GIS information will be available to the public via the Internet and GIS maps can be used to track and provide information about sustainability indicators such as urban sprawl and the 17 livable Tucson goals.
- Collaborative Work with Neighborhoods
- If GIS can be effectively applied by residents to better plan and manage their neighborhoods;
- If residents can collect, organize and transmit data back to the City (thereby reducing the cost of GIS data collection and maintenance);
- If it is feasible to provide training and job opportunities for the volunteers associated with the project?
As the City, through Citizen and Neighborhood Services, NETeams, and other City activities, works more closely with neighborhoods, the utility of information about neighborhoods becomes more apparent. The Midtown GIS project is designed to test the application of GIS to the management of neighborhoods. City staff has been working with Midtown volunteers to characterize and compare the Midtown neighborhood with other neighborhoods and areas on a variety of mapped features including: sewers, water lines, streets, demographic information, etc. The goals of this pilot are to determine:
- City Management should formalize the existing GIS Cooperative.
City management should acknowledge and encourage the informal cooperation between departments. In order for information around the City to be useful, common standards must be adopted. Given the differences in the need for precision between engineers and police officers for instance, it is important that common database standards are put in place to ensure ready access to anyone needing spatial data. In 1994, City staff agreed in the Information Technology Report to view both the information and the network as shared resources. Since that time, network standards have been put in place and a large seamless City network created. The same needs to be done with the City's existing applications and databases in order to achieve the full utility of these valuable City resources
The Transportation Strategic Plan advocated four principles that might be a good starting draft for a GIS Cooperative Statement of Principals.
1. All assets will be located with geodetic precision.
2. Map graphics will be generated dynamically from databases.
3. Existing manual business systems will be converted to a centralized database system.
4. GIS data must be accessible through a simple Internet interface.
The GIS Cooperative should add, delete or change these principles until they establish the foundation of an enterprise approach. Standards should be developed and implemented that support these principles.
While some City staff are very aware of the value of GIS, the Cooperative should engage in activities that educate a broader spectrum of executives, managers, and other staff around the City about the usefulness and benefits of GIS. It is particularly important to ensure that all staff who purchase or develop applications and databases are made aware, so that their work is in accord with established standards.
The Cooperative should gather information about current and planned projects and prioritize those projects in terms of their value to establishing a strong GIS infrastructure. Their recommendations should then be forwarded through the Information Technology Director to City Management.
The Cooperative should elect a Chair from among its members to coordinate meetings and act as a liaison with the rest of City government.
- Information Technology should actively participate in the GIS Cooperative and provide staff support.
Information Technology should coordinate the logistics of GIS Cooperative meetings, publish notes of the proceedings, and provide the appropriate Internet/Intranet GIS Cooperative sites for standards, projects, notes, and educational materials. Information Technology should assist in training by scheduling classes to meet identified citywide needs. The IT Director already has the lead role in educating the City on the benefits of technology, but should work closely with the Cooperative in this area. As soon as practical, IT should develop the capability to support a central GIS infrastructure.
- The City Manager's Office should maintain a strong link to the GIS Cooperative through the Information Technology Director.
The Information Technology Director should periodically update management on GIS related progress and projects. If issues emerge that can not be resolved in the Cooperative, the Information Technology Director needs to bring together the appropriate executives and staff to resolve the issue.
- Projects that contribute significantly to the development of a robust central infrastructure should be given a high City priority and support from the City Manager's Office.
There are some projects that are important to building a strong GIS infrastructure and improving service citywide. While most of these projects will be promoted by the department that has responsibility for the manual or electronic information, sometimes the responsible department does not receive an immediate benefit from the work necessary to achieve the change so it does not promote the project. For instance, the Development Services submission does not mention moving from the submission of paper plans to electronic files in the permitting process, but Transportation's plan does. Transportation knows this would speed up the plan review process. Police need the same information available during hostage situations or execution of search warrants, and Fire needs for suppression efforts. The Cooperative needs to identify and prioritize "good of the order" projects such as these for enterprise level support.
- Beginning in Fiscal Year 99-00, City Management should provide visible support to selected GIS projects to stimulate citywide understanding and use of GIS tools.
Since so much of the effort necessary to see full benefits from GIS is time consuming and labor intensive, management should emphasize the importance of these projects. Updating older systems and databases to comply with the standards established will be a tedious effort for already hard-pressed staff members. As much as possible temporary staff should be hired to assist so that routine operations proceed smoothly. The conversion of manual systems is also an area that could often appear to detract from basic service provision to assigned staff unless support is provided. This is particularly true in cases, like permitting, where the department that must make the changes does not immediately benefit from the effort. Obviously, City financial constraints and other priorities will determine how much support can be given, but it is in the City's long-term best interest to support a few integrated projects over several individual proprietary efforts.
Timely, accurate and useful information is critical to effective management of the City's roads, traffic signals devices and street lighting, real estate, right of way, and all the maps and records these areas entail. This means that GIS is of mission critical importance to the Transportation Department. For this reason, Transportation has made the largest investment of any City department in GIS, and has worked on establishing a strong partnership with its County counterpart to take full advantage of the County GIS infrastructure. In fact, that County information is now on a computer purchased by Transportation and available to other City departments via the network. This map (Figure 4) helps to illustrate the ability to focus on large and small areas of the City as necessary:
FIGURE 4: TUCSON SOUTHWEST QUADRANT
Transportation is the only department involved in the full spectrum of GIS evolution: automated mapping, facilities management, and geographic information systems. This involvement is due to the department's understanding of the value to productivity that GIS brings. As an example, the Department of Transportation Inspectors use MapGuide and digital ortho photography to keep from travelling to Maps and Records. The needed data is copied into a Word file and sent to the Area Supervisor. This approach saves them from having to meet in the field or waiting for the mail.
Transportation has examined new innovations reengineering their approach when the benefits of the technology merit action. Recently, Transportation spent over a half million dollars of grant funds on a van. The van includes very advanced GIS equipment. With the van traveling 40 mph, the City can videotape an area, and later the videotape can be played-back and the picture displayed on a computer monitor. An operator can touch objects displayed on the screen and the equipment can identify the "X" and "Y" coordinates of streetlights, storm sewers, curbs, and sidewalks for example a to within sub-centimeter accuracy. Transportation was originally developing an inventory system using hand-held Global Positioning System (GPS) locators, but when they acquired the GIS van, they dropped the hand-held equipment because it was so much easier and quicker to use the video.
These are merely two examples of how Transportation has benefited from technology. They are perhaps the most experienced of all City departments with the issues surrounding moving manual records to automated, upgrading aging products and databases, and standardizing their data so it is useful to their department, other City staff, and the community. A quick review of their divisions will illustrate how much work has been done and much work remains to be done.
In the Engineering Division, work in all sections is moving toward converting manual files into digitized information that can be displayed and worked with geographically as necessary. In both the Design and Drafting Sections, the plan is to move to a standardized drafting product (AutoCAD) integrated with GIS-enabled civil design software. Both in-house and consultant design work would be governed by standards, electronic and referenced to the geodetic (a precise way of indicating location) network. The Survey Section has established an extensive geodetic control network throughout the City as part of a digital ortho photography project. Current plans are to establish precise locations for all the storm sewer locations within the City. Two thousand field books are being scanned to convert the information to an electronic format and then it is being referenced geographically. In the Floodplain Section, manual records need to be digitized and geographically referenced eventually to the geodetic layer of the GIS infrastructure. The Management Systems Section has acquired the van mentioned earlier and has completed a geographically referenced inventory of all major streets and roadways, as well as bridges not inspected by the Arizona Department of Transportation. Under the Plan Library Project, the Maps and Records Section will digitize and provide web-browser access to most of the plan records sheets, and Transportation is considering expanding this to a comprehensive document storage and retrieval system for all Transportation documents.
The Planning Division uses GIS technology to locate and inventory public transit and pedestrian facilities, such as bus stop locations. In the Stormwater Section, there is a need to automate the data collection for the wash inventory and GIS layers that include specific industry locations, construction sites, and inspections site in order to comply with their mandate.
The Traffic Engineering Division maintains the infrastructure inventory layers for streetlights, traffic signals, residential parking, signs, parking meters, and striping which are currently based on as-built information as opposed to geodetic referencing. Plans are to use available technology to make any necessary adjustments to include the geodetic referencing.
The Real Estate Division has generated a GIS layer that illustrates city-owned parcels on the parcel base map. The Streets and Traffic Maintenance Division use GIS information, but can contribute layers of information for Operation Splash, programmed chip sealing, and the contract slurry seal for roads. Street inspectors with digital cameras can routinely photograph problem areas for geographic reference on the Transview web site.
The Transportation Department is moving forward with GIS applications aggressively and has developed a comprehensive GIS Implementation Plan meant to move the department from "maps" and "as-builts" to data that can be used to generate electronically maps and other geographic information needed as required.
Planning
GIS is a basic tool that supports the mission of the Planning Department. GIS applications are the fundamental tools of today's professional planner. The geographic location of parcels is the foundation of land use coordination and regulation. Over the last 25 years the technical means of collecting, analyzing, displaying and disseminating geographic information has substantially evolved. Formerly, all collection, analysis, depiction, and publication were done manually. All such work was very labor intensive. The usual result was many questions, both theoretical and topical, going unanswered due to the excessive staff costs. Formal analyses, major urban research projects, and general plan formation efforts were very expensive and time consuming.
Over the last fifteen years, Planning has replaced manual drafting with automated mapping. While most people associate these products with GIS, they have a limited informational context. Using AUTOCAD, the department has automated the manual production of maps and drawings reducing redundant work and improving precision. As already noted this has resulted in both cost saving (reduction of four positions) and the cost avoidance of additional positions (estimated to be an additional 6 beyond the four positions eliminated).
In 1990, Planning took the next steps using grant funds to develop a GIS capability for urban policy research, policy analysis, mapping, and information dissemination. Since then, Planning staff has become very proficient in utilizing this technology in urban research, policy analysis, mapping and information dissemination. Planning often acts as an unofficial "service bureau" to other City divisions in mapping and urban research support.
Numerous GIS reports (maps) are on the Planning Department's WEB page, accessible from the City of Tucson's WEB Page. These reports include land use surveys, current parcel level assessor information, demographic information, socio-economic information, market area profiles, land zoning information, and real estate development trends. For example, the GIS report below (Figure 5) represents the population growth in the Tucson Metropolitan Area for the last ten years.
FIGURE 5: TUCSON FIVE-YEAR POPULATION GROWTH
Police
The Tucson Police Department has been using a number of GIS tools for the past 11 years. Information about people, places, and the events associated with them is a key part of effective policing. TPD crime intelligence officers and crime analysts use a GIS to map crime information such as identifying burglary patterns and hot spots for tactical follow up by officers. Mapping capabilities are also useful for deploying resources, problem solving, and command decision-making. Several standard reports are generated weekly but numerous other reports are custom-written by TPD officers using Arc View, an easy to use GIS development tool. The department is currently using boundary layers and attribute files maintained by the joint Pima County and City Transportation GIS Project and has contributed a boundary layer for the Tucson Police Department to the generally available collection of resources coordinated by the GIS Project.
Under a federal grant, TPD is developing an expanded mapping facility using Internet technology. When finished this will allow officers, their fellow NETeam members, other City staff and community partner to create maps according to their needs- zooming, panning, selecting crimes, boundaries and features, time depth and map size - using a common web browser. This is important contribution to the safer neighborhood philosophy of geo-based policing.
Disseminating information on serial crimes such as robberies, shopping lifting schemes and frauds is important to TPD's prevention efforts. GIS makes the uncovering of crime patterns a more rapid and scientific process.
TPD plans to share GIS information with the community and is fostering community access to assist in that process. TPD is currently working on a project to place kiosks in strategic locations around the City. The kiosks will give the citizens of Tucson access to numerous GIS reports. TPD is still working out the privacy issues related to the information but two of the reports they're currently considering include the GIS report of burglaries and the GIS report on the following page (Figure 6) showing the locations of aggravated assaults (during a 5-month period.)
The Tucson Police Department also plans to expand their current GIS effort to include the ability to transmit GIS data to lap top computers to officers in the field. An easily accessed, accurate, timely mapping system would avoid time lost when officers either cannot find where they need to go. For instance, in hostage situations or in serving search warrants, it would be tactically useful to be able to pull up the floorplans for the buildings in question. Other possible GIS enabled applications include E-911 dispatch and GIS enabled disaster planning and assessment. The Police Department recognizes the importance of this technology to both crime-fighting tactics and ongoing community policing efforts and plans to use GIS wherever it is practical and supports department and City goals.
FIGURE 6: TUCSON AGGRAVATED ASSAULTS
Water
While they use drafting and mapping products, Tucson Water does not yet use a true GIS. However, Water has identified a number of needs within the department that a GIS can fulfill. Water has acquired the necessary ESRI tools and is installing them in a "test" environment. This environment will enable Water's support staff to become familiar with the product and to develop procedures for moving current information maps to a true GIS environment.
The map on the following page (Figure 7) shows the existing and currently planned "reclaimed water" distribution system.
This map is not currently a GIS report, although the Water Department has plans to convert it. Until this is accomplished, every line must be drawn onto the map. Once it is a GIS application, each layer of data will be maintained separately; it will take less time to maintain and as data changes, the report will automatically change and be more accurate. The information will be accessible to everybody in the City for both the GIS applications developed by the Water Department and GIS applications developed by other departments.
The Tucson Water Department covers more land area than any department in the City and 85 percent of the information used by Tucson Water staff to make decisions is spatial in nature. Almost everyone at Tucson Water uses maps. The Research and Technical Support Section needs to know where the wells are. The System Planning Section needs to model the system to ensure proper design and the maintenance staff needs to know the locations of specific components for proper servicing.
A tremendous amount of redundant work is being performed without a GIS. Currently, Tucson Water maintains its water system information on quarter-section valve maps. Most of these maps (over 1,400) are still maintained using manual drafting methods. To address these issues, and more, Water is in the process of implementing several different GIS applications using the databases from the following systems: Pueblo Utility Billing System, Valve Maps, Hydraulic Model system, and the Water Quality System.
FIGURE 7: WATER DISTRIBUTION
Fire
The Fire Department doesn't currently use a GIS but they do have a senior engineering technician using AutoCAD to draw the service delivery maps. Easy access to comprehensive geographic information would greatly assist them in their mission. Though some of the information is from the Fire Department, much of what they want is to access is contained in other departments' databases. Information about locations and their various attributes for instance. Fire would access that data and display it geographically according to a particular need. For example, maps that clearly depict streets, hydrant locations and any pertinent physical barriers are particularly useful in fire suppression activities. The geographic display of hydrant test data including recent test results and the identification of hydrants requiring testing would assist Fire in ensuring routine testing and reporting requirements were met. Obviously, having information on the precise locations of both above and below ground hazardous material storage tanks assists in fire fighting and responding to spills. Fire would also like to be able to access and display geographically information on fixed infrastructure such as schools that could potentially serve as evacuation centers, equipment storage locations and hospitals.
Library
Tucson-Pima Public Library (TPPL) is currently offering the City and County GIS information on selected computers in the library to help citizens locate information regularly requested such as political districts, voter districts, addresses and names of property owners, and neighborhood characteristics. This information helps individuals communicate with their legislative representatives, participate in elections and decide where to buy a house or locate a business. Neighborhood associations use the GIS to research the characteristics of their neighborhoods and to develop mailing lists. Small-business and non-profits use the GIS as a marketing tool and students researching Tucson find the GIS to be a valuable, unique resource.
The library is planning to work with Community Services to disseminate information about housing programs. For example, customers could do their own checking to see if a certain address is in a "low/mod" area which qualifies for certain grants. Future TPPL applications include periodic comprehensive demographic analysis of all library branch and Main service areas, as well as areas not currently within three-miles of a library. This research will help the library plan future services and collections, and locate future facilities. GIS applications may also be used to connect library usage information with library customer addresses. This could help the library learn more about the customers using the specific branches and therefore better develop branch collections of books and other material.
Development Services
The Development Services Department identified the need to access the zoning and addresses of particular parcels, to see what has been permitted and the prices of the permits issued within selected areas, and to be able to identify where construction is taking place.
In addition to the responding departments, there are many more potential uses of GIS technology.
ISSUES AND CONSTRAINTS
Lack of City GIS Policy and Standards
Currently the City has no defined policy, standard or oversight group responsible for its GIS environment. While informally most users of the City GIS environment have adopted the use of the ESRI suite of GIS tools, several departments are producing their own maps. With proper coordination they might be able to use the County's maps or (if the County maps aren't appropriate) share one another's. Standards for data management and information retrieval need to be set and migrated to over time as appropriate. Proper disaster recovery resources critical to the operations of some departments need to be assured.
Lack Of Information Technology Department Technical Support
While Y2K system remediation continues IT application division staff can not invest the time necessary to become fully trained. IT currently only provides secondary or backup support for the Sun hardware platform that houses most of the current GIS databases, and has limited in-house expertise on Oracle, the primary database tool. In the past, IT has paid for a block of consultant time to assist AutoCAD users, since AutoCAD is the City's defacto drafting standard. However, IT staff are not trained in any of the ESRI or any other GIS tools. For smaller departments that have little or no dedicated technical staff the issue of technical support is especially difficult. Without being able to rely on IT for support they must either make a significant investment in staff training or hire an outside consultant.
To be truly useful, GIS databases must be managed and maintained by a professional Database Administrator (DBA). Soon a small number of Oracle DBAs will be called upon to support all GIS databases throughout the City. The Information Technology Department currently has one Oracle DBA with a second one in training. IT should consider training additional Database Administrators. TPD also has an Oracle DBA and the Transportation Department is in the process of training an Oracle DBA. Interdepartmental cooperation and a coordinated effort on the part of all will be required if Tucson is to have an accessible, well-managed enterprise GIS database.
In addition to the development of less expensive and more useful software, growing City databases, and increasing staff expertise, the development of GIS for the City is benefiting from several community activities.
Pima Association of Governments (PAG) Digital Orthophotography Project
This is a large joint venture with Pima County that uses technology to deliver photographs of objects shown in their true geographic location. The true benefit is in eliminating all sources of distortion such as lens, tilt and elevation. The cost of the project is $2.2 million dollars, half of which is a City of Tucson responsibility. Such accurate photographs are invaluable to the departments responsible for the City's physical infrastructure and useful to other departments as well.
Growing National Interest in GIS
Last Fall Vice President Gore announced the creation of a joint taskforce made up of the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Partnership for Reinventing Government to study crime mapping and develop strategies to speed the use of data-driven management systems to improve law enforcement. The taskforce will examine the expansion of GIS applications beyond law enforcement to the broader public safety environment such as fire, Emergency Medical Services, and transportation.
The Office of Justice Programs in the Department of Justice is performing a survey of its Public Safety Task Force on the use of crime mapping by local law enforcement. The purpose is to develop strategies to accelerate its use and applications in the law enforcement community and for other public safety purposes.
Existing Network and I-Net Expansion
The development, updating and accessing of such large databases and the creation of large graphical files requires a high-speed network. The City is well positioned to take advantage of advances in GIS thanks to the implementation of a citywide high capacity network (I-Net) and improvements in desktop technology. The City should continue to invest in network capacity and desktop capability in order to maximize the benefits of GIS.
The use of GIS applications has reduced costs, improved efficiency, and sharpened analytical capability. However, much remains to be done if the City is to realize the maximum benefit of this technology.
For instance, in order for the Fire department to know where the fire hydrants are, they have a fulltime senior engineering technician drawing the maps - yet the Water department also needs to know where the water hydrants are. With proper coordination and communication they could both be using the same spatial data (maps) with links to the information specific to each department. Maintenance of the hydrant data could be performed by the people responsible for the hydrants (Water Dept) thereby not only eliminating unnecessary redundancy, but producing more accurate and timely data. There are numerous other areas where efficiencies could be realized and costs reduced or eliminated.
In order to improve the visibility of GIS issues and develop a citywide approach to the use of this valuable resource, the City should do the following:
- Improved Work Efficiency & Accuracy