Interview conducted by Directions Magazine Editor, Joe Francica on May 31, 2002
Tell me about the DC Atlas?
We are very excited about June 3rd,
when the Mayor's (Mayor Anthony Williams) and the Chief Technology Officer's
vision of a 21st century tech city will take a major step forward with
the unveiling of the Atlas.DC GIS is the first enterprise GIS for the
District.Before Mayor Williams established the Office of the Chief Technology
Officer (OCTO), and OCTO got involved with this project, there was no enterprise
GIS.The DC Atlas is the web-enabled window into the DC GIS.It is a suite
of tools that we make available over the intranet to District government
employees.The significance of it is twofold: For the first time, on a
wide basis, the District is going to have access to a GIS, where we are
all sharing our data and also, we are making this available to every District
employee with a web browser, which will require only one day of training
to fully utilize the basic functionality.It will empower the average District
employee to plan and make better decisions using GIS, as opposed to the
paradigm in many places where GIS is primarily the province of the GIS
specialist and technologist who have a lot of training and access.
What is the platform you are using
to deploy the intranet applications?
It is an ArcIMS with an Oracle database.
The Downtown orthophoto map was made in the detailed city map module
What is the history on the development of this system?
Before Mayor Williams took office, there were scattered employees in various parts of the District, that used GIS but who only had access to the data that they themselves had access to in their own agency.And they were using different systems; some were using ESRI, some Intergraph.When OCTO began, three and one half years ago was when we really got serious about creating and enterprise GIS for the District.We first did our air photos in 1999 and one recently that will be updated.We rolled out our enterprise GIS over the last year.The DC Atlas took us about two years, start to finish.In the fall, we are unveiling the Citizens Atlas, which will be available to the public.
Much of the information about
the DC Atlas that I received seems to be directed toward crime analysis.
Is that the driving factor in its development?
Actually, no, that is one of many
applications.Because of 9/11, there have been many recent applications
that really put the DC Atlas on the "map" that just happened to coincide
with its rollout.A lot of the interest lately has not only been crime
analysis and law enforcement but also on our password-protected emergency
management modules.The Mayor created his Emergency Preparedness Council
and they asked for some way to produce maps of evacuation routes.They
weren't used to creating maps that quickly so they came to us and we put
that together in less than one week.
The deputy mayor also starting collecting
data on things like the number of hospital beds, and our communications
and utility infrastructure, HAZMAT, etc.We are now in the process of aggressively
collecting these data.One other application that has gotten attention
lately is that we created a 3D GIS application, with the Office of Planning
in mind, for obvious reasons, and after 9/11 this had other obvious applications
as well.So we talked to the police department into fast tracking the 3D
modeling of the downtown area so that they would be ready in time for the
IMF (International Monetary Fund) protests.Of course DC has more major
demonstrations than any city in America, but particularly there is a particular
public safety and potential emergency preparedness challenge for the IMF/World
Bank protests that occur here in the District.And so we made this available
to the police department so that they could run simulations and simulate
traffic flows in various scenarios to plan the IMF protests. And
then during the demonstration themselves, the MPD (Metropolitan Police
Department) was running this application in their command center so that
when new information would come up in course of the day, they could plan
their event response to each scenario.So, really, our public safety and
emergency management agencies have fully embraced this tool.But this is
only one tiny part of the data layers and tools that we have available.
The Downtown major transportation routes map was made in the administrative module
To what degree is it being used
in the current Chandra Levy investigation?
I do not know whether they are using
GIS specifically in the Levy case.I do know that GIS is a tool that police
departments use for crime analysis, and that MPD is a major supporter of
the DC GIS.I also know that they used the OCTO-developed 3D GIS tool for
the IMF demonstrations, and they also develop their own applications in-house,
in support of their mission, using the DC GIS. Chief Ramsey came
from the Chicago Police Department and he was used to having enterprise
GIS at his fingertips and so he brought over with him his GIS person.MPD
tells me that he wants to make all his police officers crime analysts.
So, I would imagine that since the Chandra Levy case is the most high profile
case in the District that he will use every tool in his arsenal to solve
this crime.Knowing how much he values GIS, I would suppose that he is
using it.
From the statements you have made,
it would seem that this would be a great introduction to mobile-based mapping
technology, not just with in-vehicle mobile data terminals (MDT) but with
handheld mapping?
Well, its funny that you mention
that because one of my other programs is the District wireless program.
I put MDT in all the police vehicles, I put AVL (automatic vehicle technology)
in all the ambulances and I am about to put them in fire trucks.Eventually
we will have them in the non-public safety fleet vehicles as well such
as snow removal, tow trucks, trash removal, etc.And the vision is handhelds
as well with a private data network for the District.For the right here
and now, we have the wireless MDTs in police vehicles; and because the
DC Atlas is on the intranet and because there is a commercial carrier for
the MDTs, we are negotiating the IT security firewall issues to give the
MDTs secure access to the DC Atlas.But this is absolutely what we are
planning, which is to soon give the police the ability to pull up the maps
and do the analysis right in their vehicles.
The Downtown planimetric map was made in the detailed city map module
And the same is true for other District employees as well.We use Hansen for our customer relationship management and asset management software.So, if a citizen sees a problem such as a pothole or a tree needs trimming or an abandoned vehicle, they will call into the mayor's call center and a work order or a trouble ticket will be issued.The next step would be to attach that ticket to an asset using GIS so that the supervisor can route and track an employee to the problem. But then, the citizen can click on that asset and look at the service request history and see exactly when that work order or ticket was closed.Now, there is that much more accountability for the District employee to go to where they need to get the job done, as they are claiming that they are getting the job done.
This sounds, for all the world,
like the enterprise GIS systems that many cities have tried to implement.
You can go to any number of GIS conferences and find wonderful visions
and many failed promises.Have you been through that torture and if not,
what has facilitated your success?
We are very much aware of what you
are talking about and the history of those kinds of issues.We do not want
to repeat those mistakes in the District.Fortunately for us, this really
has the support of the mayor.The mayor signed an order creating the DC
GIS Steering committee, and we met for the first time last month.It is
the first time that these agency directors, deputy mayors, and other departments
are coming together and talking about their data.And that is the interesting
side affect here.We are using the GIS to drive the process of getting
agencies of taking responsibility for their data and creating the standards
for data maintenance.So we're taking that very seriously to not fall into
those pitfalls.
The Downtown major transportation routes map was made in the administrative module
You've gotten a lot of support
from the upper echelons of your government agencies.Have they recognized
the cost and additional investment that it will take to maintain the system?
Yes, absolutely.And let me add
that it is not just the local support.The fact of the matter is that as
a result of Mayor Williams and Suzanne Peck, the Hill (Congress) is an
enormous supporter of OCTO and our IT project.Virtually all of the money,
very generously, comes from Capitol funds.
You are very fortunate!
We are involved with cutting edge
technologies and, in my case, I am a District citizen, and to have this
kind of impact on my community is very exciting.