The City of Cockburn in Western Australia has won the 2003 Government Technology Productivity Gold Award for its GIS and Web Mapping project. Manager of GIS Services, Gunther Schlomer, accepted the award in March at the 15th National Technology in Government Conference, held at Parliament House in Canberra.
Before the introduction of GIS, the spatial data held by Council was severely under used because it was often difficult to find. Since the introduction of digital geo-spatial technology, spatial data has become the primary source of information used by Council’s administration staff.
What was traditionally considered to be Engineering Department data is now being used throughout Council operations, via a new GIS Services Department. The Department supports technological infrastructure, collects and manages spatial data sets. Using an internal web mapping system, officers have access to 123 layers of geographically referenced information that are grouped into 20 modules for use throughout the organisation as follows.
- Property – Searches can be performed via address, assessment, owner or plan/diagram/ strata information. It returns all property and owner information.
- Mail Merge – By using a polygon, circle or rectangle tool the program selects specific properties, then downloads the information into a standard Word document for mail outs.
- Aerial 1999 to Aerial 2002 – These are modules for the past four years of Aerial ortho-rectified imagery, which can be overlayed for asset information, such as drainage, roads and footpaths.
- Waste Collection – Displays property and bin round details, such as collection days. A customer search by bin number is also possible.
- Dog System – Information linking a dog’s registered owner, address and information such as breed, name, registration details, dangerous dog reports or barking complaints.
- Zoning Statements – Zoning specific to development applications, buffer zones, policies, and Master Plans.
- Drainage – Information about stormwater drainage and associated infrastructure. Drainage assets and catchment areas can be searched. Digital photos are attached to selected attributes.
- Proposed TPS3 Zoning – This module displays the proposed Town Planning Scheme 3. Other applications include road assets, utilities, waters and rivers, contours, structure plans, swimming pools, parks and environmental services.
“Council’s Web Mapping project is not static but is under constant development with new data-sets and modules added at a regular basis,” Gunther Schlomer said. “From the amount of spatial data available to every officer’s desktop, productivity gains were significant. All departments have found that the application speeds up routine tasks and provides officers with information they might not otherwise have.”
For further information contact Gunther Schlomer, email gunther@cockburn.wa.gov.au or telephone (08) 9391 3359.
