Enterprise GIS Strategies Strengthen Government Operations

The majority of governments in the United States have documented successes with GIS. In particular, local and state departments of transportation, public safety, social services, and planning and environmental agencies have long reaped the benefits of GIS with increased efficiency, productivity and better service delivery.

Whether the task at hand involves zoning and permitting, election precinct mapping, emergency management, mass transit or taxation, about 80 percent of the decisions a state, county or municipality makes are location-based.

Given the importance of geography in so many decisions, it would seem governments would be eager to develop a coordinated, collaborative enterprise GIS strategy. For example, such a strategy for states would foster interagency communications and communication with local, county and federal government entities.

Today, most states have established the position of GIS coordinator. Demonstrating an even deeper commitment to the technology, about 10 states have created the position of geographic information officer (GIO) with a specific mission to develop a unified GIS strategy for disparate state agencies. The position evolved because several forward-thinking state CIOs came to recognize GIS as operationally critical given the success of these solutions at the department and agency level. Where this has occurred, you can usually find a success story involving enterprise GIS.

New York recently deployed its Accident Location Information System (ALIS), a statewide enterprise GIS application linking the state's Department of Motor Vehicles, Department of Transportation and Office of Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Coordination, with the goal of improving emergency response time by providing police and other emergency services personnel with more accurate location-based data. The system also collaborates with local and county governments to ensure more complete data collection.

Connecticut pioneered coordinated emergency response across all of its public safety agencies - state police, local police, fire departments and enhanced 911 - with a GIS system that slashed emergency response times and maintains a 99 percent accuracy level of addresses and geometry, ensuring no time is wasted searching for an address.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina's destruction, Louisiana developed a statewide GIS disaster management program that is a model of collaborative success. It tracks people displaced by the hurricane and effectively delivers essential services to areas without electricity or running water. That system morphed from a GIS social services application that tracks and detects food stamp fraud.

Across the country, state transportation departments routinely work with counterparts in public safety, deploying collaborative GIS solutions to identify and prioritize road safety, maintenance and construction issues. In addition, many of these GIS solutions interact with federal agencies to procure highway funds and other federal resources, as well as work with local and municipal agencies to expedite transportation projects.

 
Success at All Levels
Similar successes also resonate from local municipalities to the largest federal agencies. For example, Kissimmee, Fla., a city of about 50,000 people, employs two full-time GIS staffers to oversee adoption of the technology across city agencies. The result: prevention of duplicated effort, better identification of cross-department requirements, speedier resolution of issues such as inspections and permitting, and a budget committee that is reassured by the city's efforts to expedite services judiciously and effectively.

In Washington, D.C., the Federal Emergency Management Agency created enterprise-level GIS solutions that collaborate with state agencies to better mobilize resources in emergency situations. The U.S. Census Bureau, a leader in GIS, publishes its GIS-based Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing database that identifies the type, location and names of streets, rivers, rail beds and other geographic features. This data is shared among private-sector users as well as local, state and other federal agencies for daily decision-making. 

However, many of these GIS solutions, and this includes many at the state level, are point-to-point oriented. They address specific issues, but do not necessarily take the big