For centuries, beacons have been lit across Britain to mark significant, historic occasions. In 1897, a chain of beacons burned nationally to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of HM Queen Victoria, so it was only fitting for a similar event to be organised as part of the celebrations to mark the Diamond Jubilee of HM Queen Elizabeth II in June 2012.

The organisers of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations initially aspired to light at least 2012 beacons, across the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Commonwealth and Overseas UK Territories. In fact, more than 4000 beacons were prepared for the occasion, including a chain of 60 beacons along the length of Hadrian’s Wall.

Jim Sibbald an account manager at Esri UK was one of many thousands of individuals who was keen to see the spectacle of the beacons and wanted to find out about beacon sites close to where he lived. With his experience of working with geographic information system (GIS) technology, he immediately recognised that it would be highly beneficial if there were an online map, indicating the precise locations of all beacons across the UK.

Sibbald explains: “While looking for my nearest beacon, I came up with the idea of Esri UK assisting by displaying a map of the beacons. I felt certain that an interactive map would help to promote the nationwide beacons and encourage more people to go to see these symbols of celebration in their own localities.”

With the backing of Esri UK’s senior management, Sibbald approached Bruno Peek OBE MVO OPR, Pageantmaster for The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Beacons, and put forward his suggestion. The proposal was accepted.

Esri UK created the map using Esri’s ArcGIS.com solution, a web-based GIS application that enables users to quickly and easily create sophisticated online maps, containing multiple layers of data, with just an internet browser and web connection. All data is hosted in the cloud.

In this case, the solution enabled the Pageantmaster to use Beacon data provided by event organisers across the UK to quickly create an attractive and informative interactive map, embedded within the official website.

Esri UK then helped the event’s organisers to publicise the map using a press release, Twitter, Facebook, online advertising and an email campaign. Esri UK also created a ‘map my tweet’ map to show the locations of tweets relating to the beacons. As a result of all this activity, the map was promoted by leading news media including BBC News, ITV News, The Mirror, The Telegraph and several national radio stations.

Esri UK’s Diamond Jubilee Beacons map was up and running in time for the launch of the official Diamond Jubilee Beacons web site. It featured prominently on the front page of the site, providing visitors with a very easy way to search for and find events close to their homes. All people had to do was enter their postcode and the map would automatically zoom into their area and show the locations of nearby beacons. The map displayed not only the beacons in the UK, but also those around the world from Canada and the Falkland Islands to Kenya and Australia.

The map proved very popular with members of the public. Indeed, in the lead up to the event, Esri UK’s Diamond Jubilee Beacon map received more than half a million visits. ArcGIS Online can instantaneously scale up to meet high demand and, at its peak, the Diamond Jubilee Beacon map received over 1,000 visitors per minute. This huge number of visitors is a clear indication of how valuable the online map was, for people around the country.

On the evening of 4th June 2012, around 4200 beacons burned across the UK, from Unst, the most northerly inhabited island of Scotland, to Jersey. Flames lit up the huge historic sites of Lindisfarne Priory and Dover Castle, as well as the smallest church in regular use in Ireland. Beacons also topped the highest peaks of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. “It was an honour to support The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Beacons,” says Sibbald. “I believe that the online map will have helped many more people to actively enjoy their local beacon ceremony – by enabling them to find out where to go or by helping them to identify beacons they could see.”

The organisers of the The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Beacons were very appreciative of the role that Esri UK played in helping to make the event such a huge success. “I am delighted at the work that Esri UK undertook,” says Peek. “Esri UK provided us with a unique map for The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Beacons and I applaud the teams’ efforts.”

Severn Trent Water is one of the largest utility companies in the UK, delivering fresh water and providing sewerage services. It serves over eight million customers from the Bristol Channel to the Humber and from mid-Wales to the East Midlands.

Severn Trent Water first deployed geographic information system (GIS) technology 12 years ago to help it manage its water mains and sewer records. Over time, it gradually extended its use of GIS throughout its organisation and used Esri’s ArcGIS software to create a corporate GIS platform, known internally as GIS in Severn Trent (GISST). Today, GISST delivers asset data, map views and geospatial analysis capabilities to over 4,500 employees and underpins almost all of the organisation’s core business processes. “We cannot operate without GIS now,” says Severn Trent Water’s GIS manager Steve Allen.

One of the organisation’s most important GIS applications is GISSTupdate. This pivotal solution is used by the business to create records of underground pipework and other assets, as well as update records whenever assets are replaced. The information captured and maintained using GISSTupdate flows throughout the entire organisation and is used by everyone from senior managers to field-based engineers. It is therefore absolutely essential for employees to be able to use GISSTupdate effectively to create highly accurate records.

In October 2011, new legislation came into effect requiring water companies to take over responsibility for private drains and sewers across the UK. Severn Trent Water anticipated that its network of assets could increase by a massive 68%, from 54,000 km to 91,000 km, as a direct result of this act of parliament. To help it capture data about all of these new assets, the organisation decided to upgrade its GISSTupdate application and migrate it to the latest version of Esri’s ArcGIS technology.

Given the criticality of the GISST update application to the business, Severn Trent Water wanted to make sure that its employees could use the new GIS confidently and proficiently. It therefore called upon Esri UK to deliver a bespoke programme of training for over thirty people.

There was just a three-week window for the training to take place, so the course programme and schedule had to be meticulously planned. A certified trainer from Esri UK spent several days on site, assessing the current level of competency within the team, seeing how the legacy system was used and identifying skills gaps. He then devised a bespoke training programme, covering ArcGIS Desktop 10.0 and the ArcFM extension. The course materials were also tailored specifically for Severn Trent Water and included screen shots from both the legacy GISSTupdate application and the new one to aid understanding.

In total, over 30 employees received training in how to use the new solution. The courses were tailored to meet the needs of different people within the team, who ranged from new employees and temporary staff to highly experienced ‘power-users’. Some employees received two days of training, while others received up to four days of training, depending on their ability level and job requirements.

The training was delivered onsite, at Severn Trent Water’s offices, and incorporated lots of exercises, which gave users the opportunity to test their understanding and practice their skills. These exercises, as well as examples used in the training, were all based on Severn Trent Water’s own business data, which made them much more meaningful for the attendees.

Esri UK delivered the training on schedule, within the three week migration period stipulated by the business. When the new GISSTupdate application went live, all employees in the team were able to perform their tasks competently. “The training has helped us to find and reinforce best practice ways of working,” Allen says. “Esri UK helped employees to understand why they needed to do activities in a certain way and how the software works.”

The company’s investment in thorough training will help to minimise human errors and ensure that asset records are created and updated accurately. “Data quality is very important in our business,” explains Allen. “We need accurate records not just to show us where our assets are, but also to support all our business planning activities and investment decisions. Having accurate asset information helps us develop our business and deliver a reliable and good service for our customers.”

The training provided by Esri UK was very cost effective for Severn Trent Water, because it enabled the company to provide highly relevant, customised training for less than the cost of sending 30 employees on standard courses. The company also saved money by eliminating the need to reimburse employees’ travel and accommodation expenses.

Allen believes that Severn Trent Water gained added value for money from the high quality, bespoke GISSTupdate training materials developed by Esri UK. “We can use these resources ourselves in house, to train new employees in the future,” he says.

Sellafield Ltd is the company responsible for safely decommissioning the Sellafield site on behalf of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Located in West Cumbria, Sellafield is the world’s most complex nuclear facility and has been at the centre of Britain’s civil nuclear history ever since its beginnings in the 1940s.

The Strategic Planning team at Sellafield Ltd makes decisions that shape the evolution of the site. It selects the location of buildings and facilities, plans the timing of construction and demolition and organises the routing of transport and facilities. In order to safely decommission hundreds of nuclear plants, hazardous storage facilities and buildings, as well as vast stretches of contaminated land; the team needs to arrange the construction of new transportation and utility networks and over 300 new buildings over the remaining lifetime of the site.

To do all this on a congested 2.5 km² site containing 1400 buildings, 55 km of transport infrastructure and 330 km of pipes is difficult enough; but add to that the safety issues associated with 200 nuclear facilities, the logistical challenges presented by 70 separate business units and a planning horizon of 110 years – then the huge magnitude of the undertaking becomes apparent.

Without a coordinated view of the site, Sellafield Ltd realised that it might not be able to manage and develop its facilities in the most time and cost efficient way. The Strategic Planning team was concerned that buildings and utilities might be constructed to suit one purpose, without taking into account the needs of adjacent and subsequent developments. This in turn might lead to protracted projects, delays and unnecessary costs.

The Strategic Planning team at Sellafield Ltd decided to address the challenges by consolidating information from many sources into a single planning system. They acquired Esri’s ArcGIS Desktop solution and the Tracking Analyst extension enabling them to analyse information relative to time and location.

The Geographic Information System (GIS) solution gives the Strategic Planning team the ability to visualise the entire Sellafield site at different stages in the project, monitor the progress of each decommissioning programme, plot the locations of proposed developments, maintain assets and view animated timelines. The team can represent existing and planned buildings on the site at different points in time and plan site usage many years into the future. The system enables planners to take into account concurrent and adjacent activities, previous land use, potential contaminations, site congestion, the proximity of dependent facilities, the cost of transporting materials, the utility infrastructure and other planned developments.

ArcGIS is helping Sellafield Ltd to minimise costs across all project phases. In the design and development stage, the solution helps managers to reduce site location time from many weeks to a few days. Managers have visibility of multiple projects (which can be both concurrent and consecutive) across the site. Managers can group projects together to make more cost effective use of contractors, land and utility resources. They can also plan more strategically and select sites that are close to existing rail and pipe networks to reduce both construction and on-going operating costs.

“The cost of construction is only around 10-25% of the total lifetime cost of the building,” says the CAE Leader. “A large proportion of the rest of the cost stems from transportation and the cost of providing utilities. Therefore, if we can locate a building close to other dependent facilities or combine requirements, we can reduce the whole lifetime cost by up to 10%.”

ArcGIS delivers accurate, up-to-date information about the entire site, over the entire duration of the project. “ArcGIS enables us to understand the future better,” says the CAE Leader. “We can look forwards and see when one project is in a critical phase and plan neighbouring and dependent projects around that, so that they don’t interfere with each other. Once you use ArcGIS to display the sequence of plants and their activities, you can see disconnects in logic and coordinate the timing of multiple projects much more effectively to reduce risk.”

Two of the potential risks faced by Sellafield Ltd are that: a) the project will exceed near term and long term budgets; and b) the project will overrun its near term and long term deadlines. The organisation anticipates that its use of ArcGIS minimises these risks, by helping it to keep its massive 110-year project on schedule and on budget.

Some areas of the Sellafield site are contaminated and there are also a wide range of other safety hazards. Sellafield has been able to use ArcGIS to plot hazard locations and show their proximity to people at work. The CAE Leader explains: “There are a small number of people who need to work near the hazards, but there are many others who don’t. Because we now have a better spatial awareness of where the hazards are and where our people are, it is easy for us to make decisions about relocating them.”

Sellafield Ltd has fifteen directorates and over seventy operational units. ArcGIS provides Sellafield Ltd with a central source of data and tools that facilitate closer collaboration between these groups. “ArcGIS is enabling us to improve planning efficiency and coordinate the activities of over seventy business units more effectively,” says the CAE Leader. “It is helping us to achieve a much more collaborative way of working. We would find it difficult now to manage a project of this scale and duration without ArcGIS.”

In the water industry, effective asset management is a critical business priority. The industry regulator Ofwat monitors service performance very closely, and there is a direct correlation between asset failures and service failures which, inevitably, lead to poor customer satisfaction. It is therefore absolutely imperative for water utilities to have accurate, complete asset data, so that they can repair asset defects quickly, as well as invest wisely in asset replacement programmes to reduce the risk and frequency of service issues.

Severn Trent Water was determined to enhance the quality of its asset data and took the decision to completely transform its approach to data collection and verification. The company had previously digitised its records of underground water mains and sewers, back in 2000. However, for decades beforehand, it had relied on paper-based asset maps updated by hand. “As our original paper-based records weren’t that precise, many of our digital records didn’t have the accuracy and completeness that we needed” explains Steve Allen, GIS manager at Severn Trent Water.

In 2011, following the introduction of the Private Drains and Sewers Act, Severn Trent Water took on responsibility for an additional 37,000 km of underground pipes, giving it a water mains and sewerage network long enough to stretch around the globe three times. Most of these ‘transferred assets’ were either poorly recorded or not mapped at all, so it became even more imperative for the company to implement an effective approach to improving the quality of its asset data.

For many years, Severn Trent Water has used geographic information system (GIS) technology from Esri UK as the basis of its corporate GIS platform, known internally as GISST (GIS in Severn Trent). The company decided to use Esri’s ArcGIS Mobile technology to give its 1,000 mobile engineers the ability to confirm, correct and collect asset data in the field for the first time.

The new solution, GISSTmobile, was introduced as part of a ‘Stop the Rot’ campaign that explained the vital importance of data accuracy to employees. “Our new GISSTmobile app now makes it really simple for our mobile engineers to confirm records when they are right, correct records if they are wrong and collect records if they are missing,” explains Allen. “In the past, even if our mobile engineers knew that our central asset records were wrong it wasn’t easy for them to make corrections in the field.”

When engineers use GISSTmobile to verify existing records or make small asset amendments, these ‘black-line’ changes are directly transferred into the company’s central asset register without any manual intervention if they pass some pre-determined quality rules. In other cases, such as when new assets are listed, ‘red-line’ changes are marked in the field and then checked by a centralised team. All updates made by mobile engineers – both proposed and accepted – are immediately visible to all the company’s 4,500 employees.

Severn Trent Water is being rewarded for its commitment to data quality with a number of different business benefits including:

Strong business performance
With improved information about the locations and condition of its assets, Severn Trent Water can make better decisions about where and when to invest in upgrades, to balance customer expectations, regulatory requirements, CAPEX and OPEX. “Having better data is contributing to Severn Trent Water’s household customers continuing to receive the lowest average combined water and sewerage bills in England and Wales,” says Allen. “In 2017, companies will be able to compete to supply water services to non-household customers for the first time, and our improved asset data puts us in a strong position to capitalise on this opportunity.”

Better customer service
Having more complete and trustworthy asset data enables Severn Trent Water to respond more quickly to unexpected issues, such as burst pipes and sewer blockages, and provide a high standard of service for its customer base of 7.7 million people. The organisation is better able to deliver quality drinking water, prevent sewer floods and achieve the Outcome Delivery Incentives (ODIs) set by OFWAT to deliver on customer expectations.

Avoidance of unnecessary costs
Severn Trent Water can now rely on its asset data to help avoid the costs associated with unnecessary excavations, by digging holes in the correct location, the first time.. By using its data to make more informed strategic decisions about asset replacements, the company can also prevent potential asset failures from occurring and avoid the added cost and inconvenience of emergency repairs.

Improved internal efficiency
Finally, Severn Trent Water has improved its operational efficiency, as asset updates are no longer ‘double-handled’. 12,000 updates a month are made directly into the database with no intervention. Allen adds, “Employees right across the business can work more productively, as they are all looking at the same ‘Common Operational Picture’ and can have complete confidence in the accuracy of this data.”

Scania is a major supplier of trucks, buses, coaches and engines for industrial and marine applications. The company also provides a wide range of complementary and ancillary support services through over 90 service centres across the country. In 2011, Scania’s share of the UK heavy truck market was 14% and its combined bus and coach market share amounted to 8.1%.

Over recent years, Scania has been developing its use of business intelligence products with the aim of improving decision making right across the company. In the next stage of this initiative, it wanted to use geographic information systems (GIS) technology to develop a web-based solution to support its sales team and senior managers. It aimed to use GIS to display the locations of depots, dealer terrains, sales areas and key customers on interactive, digital maps and then give users the ability to drill down into these maps to view quotes, sales by area, revenues by customer and past and planned sales initiatives.

Scania had been using GIS for several years, but its existing GIS software did not have the capabilities necessary to meet the organisation’s objectives. The company therefore undertook a thorough evaluation of available GIS software and selected Esri’s ArcGIS system as its platform of choice. Many of the other software applications evaluated didn’t offer all of the functionality that the company required, such as the ability to measure and analyse drive times.

Employees within Scania’s market information team had the vision and technical skills to develop the new GIS-based business intelligence solution. However, they had no prior experience of using Esri solutions. Scania therefore decided to invest in training with Esri UK, to help its employees get up to speed as quickly as possible.

Initially, the market information team considered attending four or five of the standard training courses offered by Esri UK. All of these courses had some elements that were highly relevant to the team’s goals and training requirements, but other elements covered in the courses were less pertinent for the company at this point in time.

Scania therefore decided to take advantage of Esri UK’s bespoke, on-site training service. It worked with Esri UK to design a two-day course that would cover precisely those skills and techniques that the team would need in order to successfully develop its new GIS solution. The company also arranged for its own business data to be used in examples and exercises during the training course.

The qualified trainer from Esri UK arrived at Scania’s offices on the first day with absolutely everything necessary to deliver the course including laptops already loaded with GIS software and Scania’s company data. There were no connection or IT compatibility issues, so the course could start promptly and proceed smoothly. During the two days, the course attendees had the opportunity to complete a number of different exercises, which helped them to embed their newly-acquired ArcGIS skills.

Scania is confident that Esri UK’s on-site instruction delivered good value for money. The bespoke training for two employees was around £2,000 less than the cost of sending two people on five separate courses. What is more, because the course was being delivered in-house for a fixed fee, Scania was able to involve a third employee, at no additional cost. Scania also saved money by avoiding the travel and accommodation expenses that would otherwise have been incurred by sending employees on standard training courses.

The employees saved a considerable amount of time as they did not need to be away from their desks for more than two days. They did not fall behind on other activities, and the impact of their absence on the business was lessened.

Most importantly, Scania’s employees received highly relevant, tailored training in precisely the skills they needed to create the new business application. Because the course employed data that they were already familiar with, the course attendees were able to easily understand the new GIS concepts and capabilities that the trainer demonstrated and get to grips with new techniques more quickly.

Scania’s employees now have the skills they need across ArcGIS Desktop, product extensions and ArcGIS Server. They are therefore all set to develop a fully customised GIS web service that will help improve the effectiveness of the company’s sales team. The organisation anticipates that its new GIS solution will enable sales managers to interpret and analyse existing data within the business more effectively. They will then be able to align sales activities with current and potential customers, to drive greater sales success and business growth.

When earthquakes or floods occur, epidemics spread and conflicts erupt, humanitarian aid agencies have to be able to respond quickly. But before they can act, they need to know which roads are still passable, where vulnerable people are sheltering, what facilities are available nearby and much more besides.

MapAction is the only volunteer-driven charity of its kind that provides rapid, on-the-ground mapping and precise situational data to humanitarian aid agencies in response to a humanitarian disaster, or during a humanitarian crisis. This critical and timely insight enables international aid organisations to react promptly and operate more effectively to help save lives and minimise suffering.

Since its inception in 2002, MapAction has become an indispensable part of the global response to humanitarian crises. As soon as its volunteer teams, who are specially trained in disaster response, arrive in affected areas, their services are in high demand from multiple organisations. Consequently, on-the-ground teams face growing pressure to produce and distribute more maps, more quickly.

MapAction is also experiencing increased demand for customised maps. For example, search and rescue teams may need a specific map relating to a village that has been cut off by a landslide. MapAction volunteers try to respond to as many of these individual requests as they possibly can, but their time is stretched.

To address both these issues, MapAction wanted to find a way to share its maps and data in digital formats in the field, making it possible for aid agencies to obtain additional copies of maps more quickly and create customised mapping intelligence products for themselves. However, in areas of conflict and natural disaster there is often either no Internet access, or poor connectivity, and this inevitably presents a significant barrier to digital data sharing.

Esri UK has supported the work of MapAction for over twelve years, and ArcGIS, Esri’s geographic information system (GIS) platform, plays a pivotal role in the delivery of MapAction’s emergency mapping service. MapAction secured funding for a new ‘selfservice’ mapping facility, and sought out the expertise of Esri UK’s professional services team to help it design and deliver this inventive project using ArcGIS.

Named the MapAction Kiosk, the new GIS solution developed operates using the principles of web mapping and runs on a lightweight laptop connected to a powerful WiFi router. Aid workers in the vicinity of MapAction’s field base can connect to the Kiosk via WiFi and print additional copies of any maps produced by MapAction’s volunteer team. In addition, they can view interactive maps, zoom into specific regions and turn on required data layers to create any customised maps that they might need to inform aid missions. Finally, responders can use the Kiosk to download MapAction’s up-to-date spatial data and incorporate it into their own GIS systems.

“The challenge of developing a data sharing solution for use in the field, with no Internet, was at first quite daunting,” admits Matt Pennells, web mapping project manager and long-standing MapAction volunteer. “However, we achieved our goal using ArcGIS and, incredibly, can now deliver web mapping in areas where there is no web.”

MapAction will continue to produce the paper maps that aid organisations around the world have come to rely on. However, now, this unique charity will also be able to make its invaluable location-based intelligence accessible in digital formats to many more people, more quickly, to improve the effectiveness of life-saving humanitarian missions.

Notably, the MapAction Kiosk will help the charity to distribute its maps to aid workers who might otherwise not have had access to a paper copy. It will therefore make situational data accessible to a wider audience and facilitate greater collaboration between multiple aid agencies and local groups. Pennells says: “The Kiosk helps us to give a common operational picture to all responders and agencies working on-the- ground in a disaster situation. The sooner they have this shared knowledge, the closer they can work together to reach people at risk.”

In addition, the Kiosk gives aid workers the ability to create their own customised maps for the first time. They can gain instant access to the mapping intelligence they need – in the precise format they need it – to enable them to respond quickly to emerging new scenarios.

Use of the Kiosk will free up time for MapAction’s field teams, enabling them to develop additional specialised maps that can really make a difference to the success of aid missions. Indeed, Pennells estimates, “In a ten day deployment, the self-serve function of the Kiosk could save volunteers as much as half a day of printing and administration time.”

MapAction’s CEO Liz Hughes is convinced that the Kiosk will play a vital role in helping the charity to safeguard vulnerable communities. She says: “In most disasters there is a direct correlation between the speed of the response and the number of lives saved. The MapAction Kiosk enables us to provide maps and situational information to more people, very quickly, helping them to make better, faster decisions and alleviate human suffering.”

The Scottish Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) was established in 2005 by Strathclyde Police to address high levels of violent crime. Now responsible for programmes across Scotland, the VRU works closely with other professionals, including social workers, health experts and academics.

In 2005, the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed that Scotland had one of the highest rates of violent crime in Europe. “We had an unenviable murder rate – particularly in Glasgow – and murders with a knife were three times higher than in England and Wales”, recalls Will Linden, Analyst Coordinator at Strathclyde Police. “We also had a lot of alcohol-related violence.”

Strathclyde Police’s analysis confirmed the problem and also revealed that levels of violent crime were broadly static, but with increases in certain areas. “Clearly, traditional policing by itself was not enough”, says Linden.

The specialist Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) was set up to tackle violent crime, with two clear objectives: to reduce violent crime through strategic and focused use of resources, and to work with partners to initiate long-term change in attitudes to violent crime.

A Geographical Information Systems (GIS) was crucial. Strathclyde Police already used ArcGIS software and Linden recalls, “The thing that was absolutely key for us was the flexibility of ArcGIS. It allowed us to build the solutions that we wanted.”

The VRU started by developing a geodatabase of violent crime. Up to 70% of serious violence is not reported to police, and the VRU wanted a comprehensive and accurate picture, so data from hospitals, fire service, schools, social services and other partners was added. The team then integrated external factors that affect violent crime, such as poverty, housing, unemployment and environment. “GIS helped us to identify the scale of the problem, as well as start to develop a deeper understanding of it”, says Linden.

ArcGIS is used to identify patterns and advise local forces when and where to target resources. Strategically, it is used to examine practices abroad, identify commonalities and assess whether they might work in Scotland. “We don’t have exactly the same problems as in the USA, or the same scale of problems, but we do have many of the same underlying causes”, says Linden.

The VRU is building an international reputation for excellence and has received awards and plaudits, including the Centre for Social Justice’s ‘Public Sector Award 2009’, being highly praised by Channel 4’s ‘Truth about Weapons’ and is the only police member of the WHO’s Violence Prevention Alliance. Highlights include:

Understanding of gang-related violence
Glasgow’s East End has about 50 known gangs, each with tight territories that the VRU plotted on street maps. “This gave us a definitive geography of gangs”, explains Linden. “We could then map on incidents of violent crime and start to associate them with gangs and points of conflict between gangs. We overlaid network information on top of this to give us an understanding of how far and to where gangs travelled. The maps showed where gangs went, but also who they might interact with on the way.” This was shared with local police and community organisations to support initiatives for monitoring gang activities and reducing violence.

Reduced city centre violence
The VRU mapped and analysed knife crime and advised local police of the best locations and times for stop-and-search. The team also plotted ‘journeys to crime’ and combined these with transport and vandalism data from bus companies. Consequently, the police stopped some buses in the suburbs, which led to a fall in all crime – not just violent crime – in the centre of Glasgow.

Detailed intelligence for solving murders
Behavioural profiling and mapping of murderers and suspects can yield vital clues. “Everyone has lots of locations associated with their lives”, Linden explains. “GIS allows us to build up quite a complicated picture of behaviour.” GIS also improves accuracy, e.g. plotting the exact XY coordinates of where in a field a body was found. Linden notes, “GIS will always be a major component of policing work because it makes it so much easier to bring critical information together from different sources to make a clear picture of a crime.”

Clear communication with partners
The VRU has expanded: it initiates projects across Scotland and provides analysis for local police forces. As part of its remit to change attitudes, it works closely with various partners to tackle the causes of violent crime. Data is displayed clearly and meaningfully, whether by school areas, primary care trust regions or council wards. “By putting the issues onto a map that is relevant to partners, it makes it abundantly clear to them how violent crime affects them”, says Linden. “ArcGIS enables us to get a message out in a language that others understand.”

“Scotland’s figures for violent crime are coming down”, says Linden, but that is not enough, “We would like to see a lot fewer people being murdered and a lot fewer people being assaulted and injured.” The VRU expects to achieve this through continued use of ArcGIS.

Northern Gas Networks (NGN) distributes gas to 2.6m homes and businesses across the north of England. Its 37,000km network extends south from the Scottish border, covering a significant rural area as well as a number of large cities.

NGN has been consistently measured by Ofgem as the most cost-efficient of the eight gas distribution networks in the UK.

Good quality address data is vital for utility companies. Inaccuracies or duplication in address information can seriously impact all sorts of activities, from emergency response times to informing residents of planned works.

However, getting access to accurate data can be challenging. Because the typical utility firm has multiple address datasets across the business, there is a greater risk of duplicated entries. The lack of centralisation also makes finding address data time-consuming, hampering staff efficiency. And given the ever-changing nature of the data – as new roads are laid, buildings are constructed, and house numbers are changed to names – it’s easy for inaccuracies to creep in every day.

The need for a robust process for address management is something that NGN has understood for years. Its network covers not only two of the six largest conurbations in the UK – West Yorkshire and Tyneside – but also an area with the lowest population density outside of Scotland. This mix of dense urban areas and highly remote rural populations makes it vital for NGN to have accurate address data, to keep network maintenance and management as efficient and cost-effective as possible.

That’s why NGN relies on Esri UK’s LocatorHub platform.

LocatorHub is a powerful and flexible address management solution. It gives utilities centralised access to any and all datasets they want to use, from public data from providers such as Ordnance Survey, to their own sets of addresses, roads, network assets, points of interest and more. This creates a ‘single point of truth’ for all location information within the business.

Since 2003, LocatorHub has been the central, accurate repository for all address information across NGN. “Planning, emergency management, customer care, network maintenance, our technicians in the field – every department consults the same, accurate set of data to make decisions daily, which helps us to stay efficient,” explains Pete Crosier, GIS Data Integrity Assistant for NGN.

Importantly, the system gives every location a set of coordinates, to ensure pinpoint accuracy. It also constantly cleanses address data, correcting inaccuracies and removing any duplicates. And it can be embedded into other applications, making it a seamless part of a company’s business processes.

At NGN, LocatorHub is used to find the precise location of key business assets – from depots, to customers, to pipes. And it’s very easy to use; the vast majority of staff refer to the location information via a simple browser-based utility viewer, which lets them search for the information they want using coordinates, standard address formats such as postcode or via asset type or code.

Thanks to the accurate address data in LocatorHub, NGN is equipped to perform a whole range of tasks more efficiently across the business.

This includes managing planned works under the Iron Mains Replacement Programme. NGN needs to replace over 500km of pipe in its network every year, and informing residents of these street works is a regulatory requirement. Sending them to the wrong places or missing residences altogether, however, can result in hefty fines. “LocatorHub ensures we have accurate addresses for everyone, and helps us to plan the most fast and efficient drop route,” says Pete.

Accurate address data is also vital in the event of an emergency. Information that is duplicated or incorrect can seriously hamper response times, or at worst compromise the safety of residents. “If there’s a gas leak, we’ll typically need to turn off a whole estate. Using the data from LocatorHub, we rapidly locate the problem and have all the facts ready for any customers who may call in. We also know straight away if there’s a vulnerable person in the area who will need to be communicated with separately,” confirms Pete.

LocatorHub also helps field staff work more efficiently. “A member of staff might call up to locate something like a pipe or a manhole cover. They’ll typically be working on a restricted laptop, so they won’t be able to access this information themselves,” he explains. “All they need to do is provide a loose description of where it should be – perhaps ‘outside number seven Smith Street’. Through LocatorHub, our internal team can explain exactly what assets are in the area and how to reach them. This helps field staff get to work quickly.”

Importantly, LocatorHub gives NGN the reassurance that ever-changing address data will stay accurate long into the future. “Say we add a new-build connection, for example. It will start as a plot, will later be given a house number, and eventually it’ll have a postcode,” explains Pete. “Because LocatorHub continually cleanses the data, we never have to worry about any old references staying in the system and causing trouble down the line.”

Thanks to regular monthly support from Esri UK, NGN is always discovering new things that LocatorHub can be used for. Pete concludes: “When we first implemented LocatorHub, we didn’t know how powerful it was and how much we would use it. But it’s become absolutely central to everything we do.”

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) has a remit to ensure ‘Safer Lives, Safer Ships, Cleaner Seas’ on and around 10,500 miles of UK coastline. Headquartered in Southampton the geographically dispersed, 1170 strong staff of the MCA is responsible for implementing the Government’s maritime safety policy.

One of the key deliverables for the MCA is the provision of survey information to maintain nautical charts (marine maps for mariners) through the Civil Hydrography Programme (CHP). The aim of the CHP is to ensure that UK waters are adequately surveyed to ensure safe passage for shipping in and around the coastal waters of the UK.

The 2004 survey season saw the first use of multi-beam echo sounding technologies to gather bathymetric depth information for inclusion in nautical charts. Although this technology provides greater efficiencies, it has made it difficult for the MCA when responding to contractors tendering for work. With different models of multi-beam sensor, used on different ships, operating in different sea conditions quotes for work now vary dramatically from contractor to contractor.

The MCA needed a solution which would enable it to validate contractors’ bids in an informed, consistent and fair manner, to ensure that the £5 million survey budget is spent in the most efficient and effective way, as well as providing a method for agreeing payment for changes to the survey programme that occurred mid-contract.

The resulting survey costing tool, developed with Esri ArcGIS technology by Esri UK, allows a number of geospatial datasets and parameters to be analysed in order to generate an estimated cost of survey.

The ArcGIS spatial analysis utilises data including:

• The type of echo sounder proposed by the contractor. The survey tool can be configured to take into account proposals which use different survey tools in shallow and deep survey areas. The tool creates a grid of the survey area based on the swath width of the sensors.
• The user defined survey area polygon. This polygon is used to clip out the data required to perform the analysis. Clipping the data reduces the processing overheads. Data including a grid based on soundings is re-sampled to ensure that the pixel size matches that of the sensor swath width.
• Temporal information such as the maximum survey speed the ship may attain without degrading quality of survey data, downtime for crew rotation and ship turns.
• The maximum, mean and standard deviation of wave heights in the survey area. This information, provided by the Met Office, enables the calculation of the likely downtime a survey vessel may experience per calendar month.

All of the spatial grids are added up to allow a cost to be assigned to each pixel. This in turn allows the calculation of estimated survey cost. A map of the number of survey lines required to complete the survey along with statistics on how the estimate has been generated, is automatically populated within a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. This spreadsheet forms the basis for contract negotiations between the MCA and survey contractors.

The use of the survey costing tool has enabled the MCA to analyse the datasets required to create accurate estimates for the commissioning of hydrographic surveys. The costing tool allows the MCA to:

• Manage contract variations with a pre-agreed costing methodology preventing contractors over-quoting for variations.
• Determine the cost of proposed survey areas quickly in advance, ensuring that the “cost” in the cost-benefit equation is known precisely when choosing areas to survey.
• Providing quantifiable and repeatable results in much less time, rather than the old subjective, manual method of determining costs for surveys.
• Supporting business cases that the MCA puts forward for additional funding for hydrography.

The survey costing tool could be made available to sister organisations around the world. Due to the parameter driven nature of the application and its development in ArcObjects, the tool is easily customisable to allow for localised environmental factors. There are plans for the costing tool to be enhanced to be able to calculate risk to the mariner of not surveying a particular area. The tool could thus calculate risk and cost, and an algorithm could be written to determine where the MCA should survey in order to maximise the benefit from its budget.

The Meat Hygiene Service (MHS) is an executive agency of the Food Standards Agency (FSA) that is responsible for protecting public health and animal welfare. It has a statutory duty to provide veterinary and meat hygiene inspectors on demand, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, across England, Scotland and Wales; slaughterhouses can only operate in the presence of MHS veterinary and meat hygiene inspectors.

The MHS was committed to wide-ranging business transformation, led by senior executives with a clear vision of a more efficient organisation delivering a good and consistent service. Jenny Sergeant, IT Director, had a detailed knowledge of geographic information systems (GIS), but GIS was not used within MHS: “I wanted to try to raise an appetite for GIS with my colleagues, because I could see a thousand different ways that it could benefit the business, particularly during this period of transformation.” One day, she found some business users huddled around two large printed maps. “They were using pieces of coloured paper and sticky tape to mark out the proposed new areas that would be created from the business transformation. I just had to show them that there was a much better way.”

MHS implemented a single repository for spatial data, based on ArcGIS Server and linked to existing business systems, so that GIS applications always use current data. Next, MHS identified business critical applications that could quickly add value during the restructuring. In addition, a consultant worked on-site to share expertise and transfer skills. “The Esri UK consultant was exceptionally good and worked very well with the person designated to become our new in-house GIS expert”, says Sergeant.

Sergeant believes ArcGIS was crucial in re-structuring MHS. “It allowed us to make informed decisions about the future and the direction we want to take”, she says. Business manager Martin Evans explains: “We used ArcGIS to create 37 clusters of similar business value, taking into account the numbers of plants, the locations of staff, the geography of the area and the road infrastructure.” Changes to the plans were reflected in the GIS in a couple of hours, rather than up to six weeks with paper maps. Regional offices have gone and business managers and veterinary managers are homebased and grouped in clusters. MHS can clearly see which plants produce which meat products and allocate staff based on location and individual skills and qualifications. MHS monitors clusters, making adjustments where necessary. For example, flexibly allocating staff to where they are most needed, improving cost efficiency and service levels.

Human resources is benefitting too. Identifying mutually convenient locations for training is easy with GIS (but difficult from a spreadsheet). “It helps us to cut costs by reducing the need for long journeys and overnight stays”, says Sergeant. In addition, MHS uses maps to explore sickness patterns; managers can drill down to identify trends by region, plant and individual. “ArcGIS makes the business intelligence and knowledge that we have easier to understand. We can therefore use it to make better informed business decisions.” The service levels MHS provides are more consistent across regions. “Using a map, we can easily see the number of animals per employee in each plant… We can then make sure that we allocate similar numbers of staff to plants of similar sizes. This enables us to deliver a consistent approach to law enforcement across the country.”

Sharing spatial information is also easier, because DEFRA and the FSA already used Esri GIS. When there is an outbreak of animal disease, for example, MHS can load a DEFRA map of the affected zone. “Instead of having to hand-draw the protection and surveillance zones on a map, we can immediately see which plants are not operating and which employees can be reallocated to other plants”, says Sergeant. Similarly, as soon as MHS receives notification of a suspected case of disease, it can distribute accurate maps to veterinary experts, so they can be alert for nearby cases.

MHS plans a new IT infrastructure for its refurbished offices, including ArcGIS over its intranet, so that “it will be available as a means for everyone to access any information that they might need to support all aspects of their work, using ArcGIS as an everyday business tool” says Sergeant.