Storymap Highlights Public Works Projects

The City of Rancho Cordova's Public Works Department wanted to showcase to residents the various projects the City was working on. 

Interwest provides GIS Services to the City and was asked to create a map board which depicts various public works projects along with a description, status, a site photo, and funding source(s) for the City's State of the City event in November 2015. 

November 2015 Map Board

The map board was a big success and it was decided that it should be updated annually each year at the State of the City. 

November 2016 Map Board

Knowing this information would work well in a digital format as a story map, in early 2016 a plan was enacted to create a story map with a similar look at feel. A small group of people in the Public Works Department came together to coordinate this project.

The primary goal is to identify some of the many projects managed through the City's Capital Improvement Plan and Community Enhancement Fund (CEF). The application includes projects at various stages of progress from planning through construction and completion as well as ongoing projects, and for each it provides the project name, a brief description, a representative photo, as well as the funding sources, and contact information where you can learn more. 

Story Map 2016

The challenge was to gather all the necessary information on up to 50 projects managed various project managers in the department. In order to do this a MS Excel spreadsheet with all the projects was setup, providing project managers a familiar way to update the details of their projects. This table was linked into MS Access which also made the data available to GIS applications. Once the updates were complete, the GIS staff used model builder to join the table and populate a GIS layer for the tour points which could then simply be exported to a CSV file for easy uploading to ArcGIS Online.

Model Builder

Updates to this application are planned quarterly as time permits (January, April, July, and October) at which time old projects can removed, existing projects can be updated, and new projects can be added. Check it out at: http://arcg.is/2j1wI1Q 

For general questions regarding the projects in this story map please contact Rancho Cordova PublicWorks at (916) 851-8710.

For help, more information, or to report problems with this application please contact Brad Findlay, GIS Analyst at bfindlay@cityofranchocordova.org

Comprehensive Parcel Report

Interwest provides custom reporting services to public agencies. The City of Wildomar needed a quick way to provide the public with information about their property. 

Interwest created a custom JavaScript GIS Viewer for the City. Users were already able to turn on all of the layers they needed, click on a parcel and view parcel details or attributes from other layers.

They needed a quick way to provide a report to citizens or developers with the parcel information as well as info on the property's flood zone, fault zone, community service area, council district, etc. The parcel report does just that and loads in under two seconds. 

Interwest developed a custom web based report that can quickly be saved as a pdf file for printing. The report uses SQL Spatial to compile all the details of the property into one report as well as display a map of the property. 

The report is accessible outside of the viewer as well as from a toolbar on the viewer and from the parcel pop-up for maximum flexibility.

The report also provides links to the County's assessor maps and subdivision tract maps. 

Contact us if our GIS Team can help you with your custom reporting needs! 

Transit Demand Model

Interwest GIS provides transit demand modeling for public agencies. For Shasta Regional Transportation Agency (SRTA), Interwest used the ArcGIS-integrated planning tool called Transit Boarding and Estimation Simulation Tool (TBEST).

Examining Ridership 
The validated model is visual and interactive, with tools for examining ridership forecasts based on socioeconomic, land use, and transit network builds for the service area.

• Captures the current socioeconomic and land use conditions for a service area
• Codes these conditions within a transit network
• Determines stop-level ridership
• User creates scenarios to determine potential impact on future ridership

Ridership Projections 

Intewest GIS used TBEST and GIS to project ridership under different scenarios including:

• Adding a new Route
• Re-routing an existing route 
• Adding Sunday Service
• Increasing fares

Does your transit agency need assistance with transit modeling? Contact Interwest's GIS team for more details! 

Honoring our Heroes: Military Banner Program

The City of Elk Grove launched a Military Street Banner Program honoring veterans who reside in the City or resided in the City and are now deceased. The City designated 75 poles for the program. 

Interwest GIS solved the following needs for the City:  

Provide the contractor installing banners location information
Interwest created a web map of each banner's location to assist the contractor in installing the banners. 

Provide City staff a way to track the installation date of each banner with workflow reminders 
Each banner is installed for a 12 month period after which the banner is removed a new banner is printed and installed in its place. City staff needed a way to track the installation date of the banners with workflow reminders of when a banner needed to be removed so the staff could order the printing of a new banner and schedule the installation. Interwest's GIS Team created a SharePoint list that integrates with the GIS streetlight data to feed the installation map for the contractor and the public map. 

The SharePoint list contains all streetlights. Each evening an SSIS package runs and imports the data from the SharePoint list into an SDE table. A spatial view is used in the map to join the table to the streetlights layer. A script is also run nightly to update the data in ArcGIS Online so the public map is up-to-date. 

Provide the public a way to find the location of their veteran's banner
Until a custom banner has been purchased, banners honoring all veterans are displayed on the poles. A public web app was created to assist the public in searching for and locating their veterans banner. A story map was also created showing the veterans photo, name, branch, and rank.

Performing Cost Effective Asset Management Inventories Utilizing GIS

Interwest was honored to be selected to speak with the Town of Atherton's Public Works Superintendent Steve Tyler at the APWA Public Works Conference in Richmond. 

Below is a link to the slides from the presentation Mark Dumford and Steve Tyler gave on November 3rd. 

Open Data and Agency Collaboration

Interwest was honored to be chosen to speak at the 2016 MISAC Conference in San Diego. 

Below is a link to the slides from the presentation Steve Gay, GISP gave on Open Data and Agency Collaboration on Sun, October 9th.

Need help implementing configuring ArcGIS Open Data for your agency? Contact our GIS Team to find out how we can help your agency meet the open data requirements in Assembly Bill 169 Chapter 737.  

Croudsource Storymap GIS Game

We had a work retreat last weekend in Monterey, CA. 90 families from our Northern California offices gathered for a fun weekend. Terry, the president of our company, suggested our GIS team make a game for the retreat. (yes, actually, we are hiring ;)

Premise of the Game:
Earn points for sharing photos of your trip via a web app accessible on a smart phone

Our team created 5 different applications and tested them out in the field. The options we evaluated included:

• WebApp Builder 
• Public Info AGO Template
• Find, Edit, Filer AGO Template
• Citizen Report Web App
• Crowdsource Storymap

We settled on the Crowdsource Storymap, key reasons included:

• Intuitive, easy to use
• ability to login from facebook, google, or ArcGIS Online
• Gallery feature to easily view other employees' photos

Game Logistics:

1. Point layer of 15 destinations at the Asilomar Conference Grounds and around Monterey 
2. A second point layer with 3 hidden destinations
3. A leaderboard webpage to display
1. The top 10 point earners
2. Clues for the 3 hidden stops
3. Once someone found a hidden stop, display the username and date/time it was found 
4. Link to launch the game
4. Employees were set loose with their phones and a link to the leaderboard  
5. A script ran every 15 minutes to download the crowdsource layer from ArcGIS Online to our SQL Server, give points based on proximity to the 15 destinations or 3 hidden destinations, verify the user did not already get a point for this location, and update a table with each users' point total. 

At the end of the game, we downloaded the photos and shared them at a slideshow during the Saturday evening dinner where the top three point earners won prizes. An extra prize was added for the funniest selfie with Terry!

Our Southern California offices are gathering for a retreat in one week in San Diego. We are working on a new dataset for their retreat and a fun new point scheme!

Check out the Crowdsource Storymap and let us know if we can help create a game for your next team building event! 

Using GIS to achieve ADA Title II Self Evaluation & Transition Plan Compliance

Interwest provides GIS services to public agencies to assist with the Americans with Disabilities Act’s (ADA) Title II Self Evaluation and Transition Plan requirements for agencies with 50 or more employees. The goal of this project was to perform a self evaluation of the City of Ceres’ programs, services, and public right-of-way and develop a transition plan for the City to ensure compliance with the ADA.  

ROLE OF GIS

GIS created a tool to assist the City of Ceres in automating the collection and monitoring of facilities and curb ramps.

DATA CREATION

The GIS Team acquired data from Stanislaus County, used existing City data and digitized new data needed to develop basemaps and for running the ranking analysis on the ramps. Our team created a data model to capture physical attributes and images of the ramps, published the data to the City’s ArcGIS Online account, and created web maps to be used for curb ramp collection in Collector for ArcGIS. 

Interwest GIS worked with the City to develop ranking criteria based on location and physical properties identified during collection to assist in mapping the curb ramps by priority. 

FIELD ASSESSMENT

Interwest provided a team of two field personnel who collected images and attributes in Collector on iPad minis. The assessment was completed in three weeks. 

After the field inspection phase was complete, the GIS team worked with engineers implement the ranking criteria. For example, ramps in high traffic locations with excessive slopes or concrete displacement would receive a high priority rank.

MONITORING AND PLANNING 

After all the rankings were determined, Interwest GIS created an overall city map displaying the curb ramps ranking and published it to the City’s ArcGIS Online account for viewing by City staff. 

City staff can use the data and map to monitor, plan, and track improvement of the curb ramps withing the City. 

Need help developing your agency's ADA self evaluation and transition plan? Contact Interwest's GIS Team for more details! 

Using GIS in Disaster Recovery

When a tornado touched down in SE Elk Grove, CA on October 22nd, Interwest Consulting Group's GIS Team at the City of Elk Grove grabbed their iPads with ArcGIS Online and headed into the field.  Working with the city's Emergency Operations Manager, Building Department and Code Enforcement Staff the team collected damage assessment data.

GIS team members surveyed the damage first hand in the field, inputting the damage location point, and updating custom fields to record the damage type and status of the clean-up efforts.  

Internal version, address removed

View the public facing version live here!

Using Esri's ArcGIS Online allowed the team members back at the office to receive live updates of the damage.  

The ArcGIS Online application makes it easy for team members to update the storm clean-up efforts via their phones and tablets in the field as residents begin to rebuild their fences and repair their homes and gardens.

Interested in using GIS on mobile devices in storm management and disaster recovery efforts?  Contact the GIS Team at Interwest Consulting Group to get started: http://www.interwestgrp.com/serv-gis.php 

Using GIS & Mobile Devices in ADA enhancements

This week some of our Interwest staff are in the field testing various tools to use along with ArcGISServer, ArcGIS Online and consumer grade mobile devices to conduct field inventory and assessment.  

One example is a project using an iPad to review the conditions of ADA curb ramps.  The data is captured on a device that is familiar to field staff.  The results are then immediately accessible by project managers in the office via an online map.  Field staff can even include a photo.

Need help with ADA compliance?  Contact Interwest's GIS team to discuss how we can help you fulfill your Americans with Disability Act compliance projects.

Join us tonight at the ESRI UC - 5:30pm on the West Terrace

Are you at ESRI's User Conference in San Diego this week?  

Interwest is sponsoring the CA/HI/NV Regional User Group Reception at 5:30 tonight, Tuesday July 24.  Meet us on the West Terrance for good food, drinks and conversation.