Jan/Feb 2004

For organisations constantly dealing with remote workers or operations, a key requirement is often to gather together all the data relevant to a specific location.

Geographic information systems are coming to the rescue here, and various systems have emerged lately to serve as a kind of "pivot point", drawing together documents and other information on the basis of an underlying digital map. Recently-announced systems involve mainstream GIS system developers GeoConcept and ESRI.

GeoConcept has served as the key to a system from Kingswood MapMechanics, its UK distributor. The company has helped traffic monitoring specialist ITIS to enhance its TAG (Traffic Alert Generator) system, making it much easier for users to see congested roads.

It has done this by taking average road speed data derived from ITIS's CongestionIndex database (a massive store of traffic data gathered in real time from 50,000 tracked vehicles) and applying this to the relevant road links on NavTech maps. The application then compares the data with live traffic speeds to pick out in colour and in real time any stretches that are congested.

 

The clever part is that the system can be configured easily for individual users. It is seen as ideal for local authorities or other organisations running traffic monitoring systems. Hampshire County Council is the lead user.

From Canadian developer Hummingbird comes a system called Hummingbird Enterprise for ESRI, which is said to allow users to analyse information quickly and easily over the Web, improving asset management, workflow, customer service and response times.

The example it cites is that of an engineer investigating a fault, who can pinpoint the area on a map and then view all the relevant documents to create a plan of action. The company says this will help them to respond rapidly, make repairs, and serve customers more effectively.

The system links ESRI's ArcIMS solution with a product called Hummingbird DM to create a Web-based mapping interface for document and records management queries. The company says all geographic information can be immediately linked to a wide range of documents such as photographs, engineering drawings, field notes, spreadsheets, reports and databases.