The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham is responsible for an area of Greater London that is only 6.3 square miles, but contains over 180,000 residents, 105,000 properties, 1030 streets and 22,000 road signs. Geography is an important aspect of all this data, but was managed by different people on separate systems.

Prior to 2000, Hammersmith and Fulham used a number of different Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Computer Aided Design (CAD) drawing tools. While these solutions performed adequately, they only benefited specific individuals in single departments.

The borough therefore decided to develop and deliver an enterprise-wide GIS strategy, with the goal of establishing a corporate geographic information standard that could be used across the authority, making geographic information available to all 7000 employees – not just highly technical users – and incorporating GIS into a broad range of council activities and services.

“We recognised how GIS could help to modernise many processes, drive efficiency and improve service, but achieving this meant a total change in attitude towards GIS”, says Tina Dawson, GIS manager at H&F Bridge Partnership, working for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

A formal review of the software available led to choosing Esri UK to supply the GIS solutions.

Esri UK helped Hammersmith and Fulham create a central database of spatial information, integrated with its land and property gazetteer. Employees were given intranet access to the data and a broad range of mapping capabilities, via a browser. This provides easy access to accurate data ranging from planning applications to street furniture. Sensitive data is handled via a secure, password-controlled mapping resource.

The next stage was to give residents access to geographic data via online applications, e.g. for locating council services.

Today, the geodatabase holds around 100 gigabytes of data and supports up to 1,250 concurrent users. As many as 200,000 maps are generated every month and this figure continues to increase.

“Our evaluation process showed that Esri’s was the only GIS platform capable of delivering enterprise-level scalability and use. Other solutions were departmentally focused and did not enable us to share geographic information across the council as effectively”, said Tina Dawson.

All Hammersmith and Fulham staff benefit from the undisputed success of enterprise-wide GIS – from the chief executive to planning officers and call centre agents, seamlessly sharing information across departments:

Parking suspensions and skip licences: It is easy for staff in the Planning Department and Highways Department to check each other’s records to ensure that requests are granted or denied promptly and appropriately.

Planning applications: Faster processing of around 3,000 planning applications and thousands more enquiries per year.

Highways maintenance: The GIS stores the precise location and state of repair of assets on multilevel, interactive maps, enabling strategic maintenance planning.

Emergency planning: CCTV camera sites, hospitals, electricity sub stations and potential evacuation centres etc are mapped and stored for rapid despatch to emergency services.

Environment enquiries: Call centre operators can quickly zoom to specific streets and addresses to pinpoint the location of a problem and contact the most relevant person to handle it.

Hammersmith and Fulham’s online interactive map for residents was a finalist in the GIS section of the 2005 European Information Management Awards, and a project to enable residents to view street works on the internet was nominated for the Society of IT Managers (SOCITM) e government successes database.

This level of success means that the borough plans to keep on expanding its use of corporate GIS until it underpins the work of every department. “GIS is now recognised as a key component of our business systems” says Dawson. “Many parts of the council simply couldn’t operate without GIS now, and H&F Bridge Partnership’s aim is to integrate it with all business processes within the council… We want to put GIS at the heart of everything we do,” concludes Dawson.

” Further benefits come from the creation of H&F Bridge Partnership: a Joint Venture Company (JVC) between the borough and Agilisys. This partnership plans to run training courses for staff and will work with departments that use GIS minimally to identify how it might help improve service delivery. It also plans to make GIS data available to local schools and share emergency planning GIS data with neighbouring boroughs, eventually creating a comprehensive map-based resource that could be used in the event of a major incident in London.

Harrow is a London Borough in the North West of the capital, bordering Hertfordshire. The London Borough of Harrow Council serves a population of over 230,000 people across an urban area of 50.47 km².

Over a period of years, Harrow Council has developed a suite of web-based services for citizens that are powered by geographic information system (GIS) technology from Esri UK. These online GIS services allow people to register for council tax or report fly tipping, for example, by verifying locations on digital maps. The council also uses Esri GIS software to deliver its ‘MyHarrow’ application, which enables citizens to use online maps and location based services to easily find their nearest library or school and check bin collection days or see who their Councillors are.

At the back-end of all these online GIS services lies a small but vital GIS integration application. This solution had been developed several years ago by a third party to extract data from the council’s Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG), enrich it and present it on demand as a core part of its web based GIS services. Without the LLPG Integrator application, MyHarrow and the council’s other web-based GIS services would grind to a halt.

The LLPG Integrator was in urgent need of updating as it was no longer fully compatible with the latest format for LLPG data. Unfortunately, however, the council did not have the skills or knowledge to develop it in-house. Rather than engaging a contractor to modify the solution, LLPG custodian Luke Studden decided that the time had come to replace it with a new integration solution that he could manage and develop himself.

Harrow Council had been using Esri ArcGIS software for several years and instinctively turned to Esri UK for advice. “We see Esri UK as the market leader for all things GIS,” Studden says.

After speaking with experts from Esri UK, Studden decided to develop a new LLPG Integrator solution using Esri ArcGIS software and the programming language Python. Having never used Python before, he signed up for Esri UK’s three day course entitled ‘Introduction to geoprocessing scripts using Python’. “The course was extremely comprehensive,” he says. “It covered all the basics, but also enabled me to develop some quite advanced skills. By the end of the three days, I had all the knowledge I needed to go away and re-develop the council’s LLPG Integrator solution myself.”

Studden particularly appreciated the depth and breadth of the course materials supplied. “The training manual sits on my desk and I refer to it frequently,” he says. “It’s a good companion for programming in Python.”

Within days of completing Esri UK’s training, Studden had successfully redeveloped the council’s LLPG Integrator from scratch, using ArcGIS technology and Python. By creating this solution himself – and not outsourcing the project to a third party contractor – Studden saved the council a significant sum of money, which could potentially have run into many thousands of pounds. The investment in training from Esri UK therefore represented exceptional value for money.

The new LLPG Integrator solution has now been up-and-running at the council for over a year and delivers consistently good performance. Unlike its predecessor, this GIS solution can be easily adapted by the council, as required, to reflect new versions of the LLPG or changes in council services. “We can extend it, modify it and enhance it whenever we want to,” Studden says.

Recently, Studden adapted the LLPG Integrator to enable users of MyHarrow to view environmental information pertaining to their streets and neighbourhoods, such as flood risks. This new capability was introduced in less than two hours of Python programming. Esri UK’s training course has therefore furnished the council with the skills it needs to continue to develop new services for citizens.

The new LLPG Integrator is robust and adaptable enough to support the delivery of online GIS solutions for many years to come – and this is a key advantage for the council. MyHarrow and other online GIS services are strategically and operationally very important because they help the council to deliver more flexible and accessible services for citizens. At the same time the online GIS services enable the council to reduce the cost of customer contact by eliminating the need for more expensive face-to-face and telephone enquiries.

Garsdale Design is an architecture, urban design and planning firm, operating from offices in a converted barn in Cumbria. While its location may be rural, its business is undeniably global. The firm has extensive experience of undertaking urban design and city master planning assignments in the Gulf Arab states and Middle East.

Along with its Iraqi partners, Garsdale Design has been contracted by the Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works in Iraq to create urban plans for the reconstruction of several key cities in the country. This long-term project involves planning for new homes, infrastructure, transport, sewerage, water and electric systems in areas that have been seriously damaged by many years of war and neglect.

Garsdale Design recognised the importance of 3D modelling in urban planning and aspired to provide 3D visualisations of its plans to help its Iraqi clients and partners understand proposed developments. However, creating these 3D models was very time-consuming. The firm used to sketch proposed new buildings, streets and squares by hand and then digitise the pictures to create 3D images. Unsurprisingly, it used to take around four days to produce a 3D model of a single building, such as a new neighbourhood centre.

As is common in large urban redevelopments, unexpected changes were a regular occurrence. On one occasion, the location of a bridge was altered without warning, which had obvious ramifications for the planned road network and neighbouring buildings. When changes like this occurred, the firm had to throw away its out-of-date 3D models and start again from scratch – and if deadlines were tight, the firm had to make a difficult choice between not providing 3D visualisations or paying for someone else to create them.

The discovery of Esri’s CityEngine solution has had a profound impact on the way that Garsdale Design works. 3D models have been transformed from a peripheral offering for clients into a core part of the company’s master planning process.

CityEngine is fully integrated with Esri’s ArcGIS platform and converts two-dimensional geographic information system (GIS) data into 3D models in a series of simple steps. It includes a 3D editor tool for creating realistic facades and adding vegetation and street furniture, all of which enables users to produce clear and realistic models. Despite the word ‘city’ in its name, CityEngine can be equally valuable in developing 3D models of rural landscapes, small developments and wind farms, for example.

Models or ‘scenes’ created in CityEngine can be easily published on the Internet and shared with colleagues, clients and partners. Esri’s Web Scenes viewer allows users to develop two models side by side and then employ a swipe tool to see what a development might look like, before and after.

Through the use of CityEngine, Garsdale Design is now able to produce accurate 3D visualisations of how cities might look in the future, far more easily. These models help its clients to understand the available planning options and make better decisions to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of city residents.

Whereas it used to take Garsdale Design around four days to create a model of just one building, the firm can now create 3D visualisations of entire city quarters in just half a day. Furthermore, when last minute changes occur or new information is received from Iraq, Garsdale Design can update its existing 3D visualisations quickly, without having to start again from scratch.

These time savings mean that Garsdale Design can now deliver a larger number of top quality, up-to-date 3D visualisations for its clients. The firm saves money by not having to pay for outside help to meet project deadlines and delivers a higher standard of service for its clients.

Elliot Hartley, director of Garsdale Design, says: “We’re a small family firm and don’t have lots of people and departments that we can draw upon when we have tight deadlines. CityEngine has expanded what we can achieve and deliver to our clients in short timescales. It helps us to keep up with bigger design companies and provide a professional service for our clients.”

In the future, Garsdale Design intends to embed rules into its 3D models, so that when data layers are added or changed, the master plan automatically updates the area. For example, if solar data is added, CityEngine could remodel a planned housing development to orientate roofs to the best angle to optimise solar energy generation.

Summing up, Hartley says: “CityEngine is transformational. It has enabled us to make dramatic time savings and, for our business, raised our ambitions so we are inspired to re-evaluate processes we took for granted. We are doing things now that we didn’t think possible before.”

Homes in Havering (HiH) was formed in July 2006 as an arms-length management organisation (ALMO) working on behalf of the London Borough of Havering. It is responsible for managing 10,411 tenanted homes, 2,207 leasehold properties and 2,830 garage units in East London.

As a not-for-profit organisation, HiH aims to operate as cost efficiently as possible, reinvesting income to create homes and communities that residents can take pride in. At the time, staff carried out surveys of estates by filling in paperwork by hand, then typing them up when they got back to the office or sending them off to be manually transferred into an electronic format. “By the time that the information was available in our central systems, it was often out-of-date,” explains Roy Ojelade, Estates Services Manager at HiH. “Our processes were slow and disjointed.”

There were other challenges too. When staff went out on site, they sometimes found it hard to determine if pieces of land were the responsibility of HiH or other organisations. Consequently, it wasn’t uncommon for a lot of effort to go into dealing with issues that were not HiH’s responsibility. In addition, staff often found it hard to describe exactly where issues were on an estate. As a result, contractors and maintenance teams sometimes wasted time because they couldn’t find the locations mentioned in reports. All of these issues meant that residents didn’t always receive a prompt and effective service.

Soon after its foundation, HiH took the bold decision to extend and develop its mobile working strategy, believing this approach would improve operational efficiency, increase the visibility of staff on estates and provide a better service for residents.

Esri’s ArcPad mobile Geographic Information System (GIS) software was deployed on lightweight, portable computers to 35 employees including 12 neighbourhood wardens, 16 tenancy and neighbourhood officers, 3 senior estate managers and 4 caretakers. Through the use of ArcPad, these mobile employees can access detailed maps of each of HiH’s properties while on site and attach a precise location references to their electronic property report.

Mobile GIS is now firmly embedded into the organisation’s processes, if an area of grass has not been cut, mobile workers can see if it is the responsibility of HiH or another organisation. If a tree requires any work, they can direct the contractor straight to the exact tree at any location. Ojelade says: “We use ArcPad for just about everything, whether checking a tree for storm damage, conducting a routine estate inspection or reporting a pothole in a path.”

More efficient business processes
The use of ArcPad has helped HiH to develop a more efficient and standardised processes, generating better data across the business. “ArcPad helps to ensure that the data collected is geographically accurate and consistent, so it can be used for comparison and analysis,” says Pluck. “It eliminates the paper trail and improves the overall efficiency of our teams.”

Time savings of at least 50%
HiH estimates that its mobile solution has reduced the amount of time required for completing inspections and other reports by at least fifty per cent. Ojelade says: “Tasks that used to take our mobile staff considerable time are now done more efficiently with any data collected being available to be disseminated among other departments within the organisation.”

Greater information sharing with residents
Caretakers use ArcPad to record the precise location where bulk rubbish, such as old mattresses and broken furniture, is found. This information is then uploaded from the mobile devices to HiH’s central systems, where it is then compiled into monthly reports and published online. “The data collected allows us to re-charge residents for bulk rubbish with precise information about what has been dumped and where,” explains Ojelade. “ArcPad provides a fast and accurate way for us to collect this information.”

Improved maintenance of properties
Mobile teams can quickly report faults and issues which means these problems can be rectified more quickly too. Likewise, staff can identify where contractors are failing to meet standards and point out areas that need greater attention with more precision. The use of ArcPad has enabled HiH mobile working strategy, delivering a more streamlined process in the overall maintenance of HiH’s estates and to a corresponding improvement in resident satisfaction.

Manchester Airports Group (MAG) owns and operates four British airports: Manchester, London Stansted, East Midlands and Bournemouth. As the largest UK-owned airport business, it serves around 42 million passengers every year and supports more than 130,000 jobs.

Known as ‘the global gateway to the North of England’, Manchester Airport is the largest of MAG’s four regional airports. MAG wanted to increase the profitability of this successful passenger and freight transportation hub, by maximising its retail revenues, improving its marketing to new and existing customers and optimising its efficiency across all areas of the business.

In any organisation, these would be ambitious goals. In a complex business like Manchester Airport, however, the challenges are multiplied. As well as developing its business, MAG must simultaneously address a multitude of other issues including environmental legislation, aviation safety, airport security and the sensitivities of local residents.

Geographic information system (GIS) technology was first used at Manchester Airport nearly 20 years ago, when it was employed to model noise contours. Following early success with the technology, the use of GIS steadily expanded and, today, it is a vital spatial information management and business analysis system, employed to great effect throughout the entire organisation. MAG’s enterprise GIS platform is based on Esri’s ArcGIS technology and encompasses server, desktop and mobile applications.

ArcGIS brings clarity to complex operational, environmental and strategic issues and, over recent years, has played a pivotal role in helping MAG make important decisions about the development of Manchester Airport. The solution has identified opportunities to improve business efficiency and hence reduce costs, as well as revealed new ways to optimise profitability. ArcGIS has also been instrumental in helping MAG minimise its impact on the environment, improve its customer service and develop positive community relations.

Here are just a few examples of how GIS has added immeasurable value for MAG.

In one very successful initiative, the organisation employed GIS to analyse the locations of its assets at Manchester Airport vis-à-vis the locations of the people who use those assets on a daily basis. It then relocated teams to site them in better facilities in more convenient areas, where they would spend less time travelling to and from jobs. “Our use of GIS helped us create a more efficient workforce,” says Vickie Withnell, Group GIS Advisor at MAG. “At the same time, we managed to free up office space that could be allocated to commercial, thereby improving our profitability.”

During the renovation of its departure areas, MAG employed GIS to model the new retail spaces created and demonstrate passenger flow through these areas. With this valuable insight, the retail team could identify the retail units with the highest ‘footfall’ and market these premium units to higher-end retailers. MAG was able to optimise its retail revenues, as well as make cost savings by re-using the GIS visualisations for brochure illustrations.

Engineers at MAG use a mobile GIS application to log faults and request maintenance work while out and about on site. MAG then analyses this information and uses it to plan work strategically, taking into account aircraft departure and arrival times. “We can now schedule work to suit the business and minimise disruption to our airline customers at busy times,” Withnell says.

To improve the customer experience, MAG used GIS to visualise and analyse customer locations, socio-demographic groups, methods of travel to the airport, road and rail networks and car parking facilities. With this information, it could then target its marketing more precisely, sending information about train stations to potential customers in the areas where people most commonly travel via train and sending information about the most conveniently-located car parks to the people who travel by car. MAG saved money on its marketing, while delivering relevant information to customers that will improve the quality of their visit to the airport.

MAG’s community relations team used GIS to analyse flight paths, noise contours and residential areas and identify the individual properties that qualified for funding for secondary double glazing under the Sound Insulation Grant Scheme. “It was a positive exercise in community relations that resulted in over 2,000 grants being awarded to local people,” Withnell says.

Building on its many successes, MAG is now developing a new GIS, based on ArcGIS, to help it undertake long term asset planning. This advanced solution will simplify the entire asset management lifecycle and play a critical role in helping to shape the future growth of the organisation.

Passionate about improving energy efficiency in the UK, the Energy Saving Trust advises individuals and households on the best ways to reduce energy bills, conserve water and minimise carbon emissions. It also works with government, local authorities and commercial organisations to help them improve the effectiveness of their sustainable energy programmes.

Across the UK there are in excess of 27 million homes, a large proportion of which were built long before the availability of modern insulation materials, efficient heating appliances and domestic energy generation systems. If the owners of these properties were to retrofit loft or cavity insulation, upgrade their boilers or install solar panels, for example, they could not only lower their energy bills, but also reduce carbon emissions, benefitting the environment as a whole.

Many different organisations – from central government and local authorities to energy suppliers – are actively engaged in promoting energy efficiency measures to home owners. However, the Energy Saving Trust observed that these energy campaigns were rarely informed by an accurate understanding of the types of homes prevalent in specific locations and the best measures to install in each home. Consequently, information about solar panels was frequently mass marketed to all homes in an area, rather than to selected homes with south facing roofs, for example.

This problem stemmed from two specific challenges: firstly there was no single database of accurate home data, covering all of the UK; and secondly the limited amount of data that was available was not easily accessible to the people on the ground, who were implementing energy saving programmes. “Decisions frequently weren’t based on evidence, which can lead to the inefficient delivery of programmes, increased costs and, in some cases, unwarranted hassle for consumers,” comments Will Rivers, data insight manager at the Energy Saving Trust.

The Energy Saving Trust set about consolidating data on every home in the UK, including property type, size, age, wall construction, loft insulation, glazing, tenure and the sociodemographic profile of the householder. Then, the organisation used geographic information system (GIS) technology from Esri UK to work out the likely roof orientation of each property and its suitability for solar panels; measure the distance of each home from mains gas and supplies of biomass fuel; and analyse the potential for wind-energy. Through this sophisticated use of GIS, the Energy Saving Trust gained valuable knowledge about every single home in the UK and successfully built up a comprehensive database with energy-related data never captured before.

“Esri technology in combination with Ordnance Survey data has enabled us to target the installation of a number of sustainable energy technologies in a far more accurate way so that we can work to increase take up of these measures,” Rivers says.

In addition, the Energy Saving Trust engaged Esri UK’s partner Assimil8 to integrate GIS into its existing IBM business intelligence system using Esri Maps for IBM Cognos. With this GIS portal, called Home Analytics, the organisation and its many partners can now perform complex searches to find, for example, houses over a certain age, in a specific city, with unfilled walls and occupants on low income, to identify precisely those households that might qualify for funding for insulation. They can generate displays on a digital map, make selections and export a report with a list of just those qualifying addresses.

The Energy Saving Trust’s Home Analytics solution enables organisations to target the right homes and the right people with the most appropriate energy efficiency schemes. It is therefore playing a crucial role in the UK, helping to drive the adoption of measures to reduce energy consumption, minimise carbon emissions and alleviate fuel poverty.

Local authorities use Home Analytics to help them reduce the cost of implementing energy efficiency initiatives and improve their ability to meet government targets. Rather than knocking on every door in a neighbourhood or mailshotting an entire city, councils can focus their resources on precisely those homes that meet the criteria. “In some cases, as much as two thirds of the cost of delivering an energy efficiency scheme can be attributed to identifying and locating the right types of home,” Rivers explains. “By reducing this cost of delivery, we can help organisations to deliver more energy saving measures into the UK housing stock in a more cost effective way.”

Commercial companies, like solar panel providers, can also take advantage of Home Analytics to improve their sales success and install more solar panels – both improving their revenues and helping to reduce the country’s overall carbon emissions. Equally, the UK’s large energy suppliers can use the solution to target those households where they can achieve the biggest reduction in carbon for the least cost. “If we can help energy companies deliver their energy obligations more cheaply, we can make their investment go further and improve the success of government policies like the Green Deal,” Rivers says.

Millions of people across the UK are affected by fuel poverty, and Home Analytics can be used to help to alleviate this suffering. Local authorities in Scotland currently use this GIS portal to pinpoint those homes in specific locations, occupied by people over 75 or under 5 years old, with high energy bills and low incomes and no cavity wall insulation for example. “Fuel bills have more than doubled since 2005,” says Rivers. “Home Analytics helps local authorities identify people who are at most risk and provide targeted support.”

As one of the six schools within Bournemouth University, Applied Sciences contains three academic centres. One focuses on archaeology, anthropology and heritage, another covers ecology and geographical science while the third deals with forensic science. Teaching both undergraduate and postgraduate courses, the school has an International reputation for delivering high quality education while also pursuing excellence in research. Areas of research expertise include: Forensic archaeology and crime scene science where, for example, staff are currently investigating genocide in Iraq, Bosnia and Rwanda and the implications of unearthing 40,000 year old human footprints in central Mexico.

In the past, only Ecology and Geography undergraduates were taught GIS for all three years as undergraduates, while Archaeologists attended GIS lectures in their third year. Recently, Forensic Science students also joined the GIS sessions from their second year onwards and other disciplines are soon to follow suit. Biology will be the next subject to take advantage of learning GIS skills from the second year on, for example.

Andy Ford, Lecturer in Geoinformatics, explained: “The growing relevance of GIS in various industries means it’s becoming ever more applicable to other subjects here at Bournemouth. Our aspiration is to make GIS available to all students within the school, giving them the benefit of learning new skills which are now in demand in the workplace. This means GIS will be accessible for Environmental Sciences and Biology students – in addition to those studying Archaeology, Geography; Forensic Science and Ecology.”

The main driver behind the new GIS initiative is that it can easily be applied to the various disciplines, to help solve relevant challenges and tasks and Bournemouth therefore believes it should be taught, to a wider audience.

The school is also set to benefit from greater economies of scale, as students from all disciplines will attend the same GIS sessions, rather than additional tailored modules which would not be economically viable. This gives staff more time to devote to research and generate the valuable income all universities need for long-term growth.

Bournemouth uses a mix of GIS software as part of its teaching programme, including Esri ArcInfo and ArcView. The campus-wide Esri licence acquired via the Eduserv CHEST programme supports the spread of GIS to new subjects, as it allows an unlimited number of users at no additional cost.

Bournemouth’s GIS teaching is already breaking new ground in the field of Forensic Science, where the capabilities of GIS are being realised for the first time. A prime example involves current Masters students, using Esri ArcView to create predictive models to help identify dump sites for murder victims.

Examining a range of spatial criteria, the models help users consider the type of decisions murderers make when hiding a body. This normally involves a thought process to find the right kind of landscape and vegetation, not too far from a road or car park and walking downhill rather than uphill. Using GIS, students create the different data layers and are able to understand all the different factors in context, to quickly reduce the area to be searched for a body.

Future plans for GIS-Forensics include students evaluating the vulnerability of 2012 Olympic sites to sniper fire, in a similar way in which proximity and viewsheds were used to identify the sniper’s locations in the Beltway shooting in Washington DC, which led to the individual’s capture.

The main benefit from increased exposure to GIS: The new skills being gained. “Graduates will be more employable and can consider jobs which specifically involve GIS. In Forensics for example, they will be able to apply emerging techniques which are relatively new to their discipline. In Europe this area of science is not as mature as in the US and is currently a growth area.” explains Ford.

Increasing the number of students being taught GIS across the School of Applied Sciences is no easy task but the benefits of students developing critical thinking skills through spatial analysis, outweighs any initial logistical challenge for Bournemouth. “As more students start to understand the concepts and potential power and utility of GIS, so other areas of science and industry will benefit. Soon there’ll be a lot more Biologists, Archaeologists Forensic Scientists or Geologists – not just Geographers – able to apply the power of spatial analysis in the real world,” concluded Ford.

The Crown Estate manages a multi-billion pound portfolio across the UK: urban, rural, Windsor and marine estates. It has a duty to enhance their value, minimise environmental impact, maximise revenue and give profit to the Treasury.

Marine assets include around half the foreshore, half the beds of estuaries and tidal rivers, and almost the entire seabed out to 12 nautical miles – almost three times the area of Great Britain, and including 22,000 km of coastline. It controls the rights to explore and utilise natural resources of the continental shelf (excluding oil, gas and coal), granting leases or licences for ports and harbours, conservation, offshore renewables (wind, wave and tidal), aggregate dredging, pipelines/cables, and aquaculture. Over the last decade, revenue has grown 70%, delivering £1.8bn profit.

The Crown Estate needed advanced knowledge management and decision support systems to analyse and manage increasingly complex marine activities and balance diverse interests of stakeholders. Most of the data had a locational element, and the number and type of parameters involved were unparalleled, so a geographic information system (GIS) was key. The challenge was to build a toolset to analyse multiple datasets. “We needed a more comprehensive understanding of the value of our marine estate in order to manage its future to the best of our ability”, explained Peter Lawrence, MaRS Programme Manager.

The Crown Estate invested almost £4m to create a sophisticated GIS analysis tool, Marine Resource System (MaRS), using ArcGIS to build a spatial database of every national dataset (currently 450). “Esri had the scalability and openness we needed to build what is one of the most comprehensive, integrated GIS data sources that the UK now possesses”, commented Lawrence. A desktop GIS tool for non-specialists was next: users connect to the spatial database, select data layers, view associated policies, and select inputs or constraints to do multi-criteria analysis.

MaRS is used to map existing demand and future potential of marine estates, helping pick areas to develop, while mitigating conflicting interests. “MaRS is a sophisticated decision-support tool which automates our constraint analysis. The results help us decide if building a wind farm is more suitable and sustainable than dredging for sand, for example, and what the monetary value is”, said Lawrence. “The resulting map is supported by the policies, rules and data analysed and used within the Estate’s business planning to make sure an activity fits our overall business strategy.”

The Crown Estate can better manage its marine estate in several ways:

Ensuring future energy supplies
The UK is the world’s largest producer of offshore wind energy, and wind is the fastest growing renewable – but more is needed. EU targets require 15% of the region’s energy from renewables by 2020, and UK government targets require an 80% reduction from 1990 levels of carbon emissions by 2050. “MaRS has helped de-risk the investment opportunity for international wind farm developers and has saved at least a year and millions of pounds… The information we now have available from MaRS helps show how the UK is one of the most attractive prospects for offshore wind development that exists today – great for both our economy and providing us with new sources of energy”, said Lawrence.

Balancing conflicting interests
“As more activities compete for the same space, MaRS analysis will be vital to help assess both short-term demands and long-term considerations”, Lawrence explains. For example, building an oil pipeline over an area licensed for aggregate dredging would have lost dredging revenue of almost £120m. Using MaRS, a compromise was implemented, safeguarding revenues.

Operational efficiency
A typical model to analyse consent issues has 90-120 data layers, and the analysis over 400 separate geo-processing steps. MaRS automates this, saving an estimated hour per layer, allowing the team to run models simultaneously or in quick succession. This saved over 300 days in six months, equating to £135,000 in staff costs.

New markets
“Ideally MaRS will become a global product to help establish best practice in cross-border marine resource planning. This would make collaboration and co-operation easier on joint initiatives, such as super grids or carbon capture”, said Lawrence. “Esri has helped us create a system which streamlines the complex GIS analysis of our marine assets, improving our ability to plan and direct our business. Being able to assess what’s best for our economy, the population and environment is of paramount importance both for today and for future generations”, concluded Lawrence.

The Ministry of Defence (MOD) is one of the largest landowners in the United Kingdom, custodian of 240,000 hectares, equivalent to one per cent of the UK. Defence Estates has an annual budget of £2 billion to manage the land and its assets, balancing military requirements with social and environmental considerations. The estate includes over 45,000 military buildings, rural training grounds (30 per cent of it within National Parks), 179 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), 50 special protection areas, over 600 statutorily protected buildings, almost 1,000 scheduled monuments, and numerous archaeological sites. In addition, Defence Estates manages permanent overseas facilities in Germany, Cyprus, the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, as well as resourcing military theatres such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defence Estates has successfully used Esri’s Geographic Information System (GIS) since 1995. However, the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) of 1998 required them to be able to query national data more effectively. A seamless and up-to-date “version of the truth” was required for both its internal and external users. This resulted in two requirements:

• Capture data in the field, ensuring the geodatabase was updated in a timely manner.
• Obtain and efficiently maintain third party datasets (from government and environmental organisations).

In addition, this data repository should be accessible to the whole organisation, with minimal instruction, not just to GIS specialists.

The Corporate Data Manager and his multi-skilled team consolidated and standardised the data captured by the eight regions. They defined and populated a spatial data model within an enterprise geodatabase that included Ordnance Survey’s baseline digital mapping. GIS applications include:

• Geographic data is disseminated via Esri’s desktop GIS viewer and Defence Estates’ web mapping portal, known as GEODE. The viewer is installed on every user’s computer, providing simple GIS to support ecologists and environmentalists working to manage activities, such as those in SSSIs. GEODE is used by the wider MOD community, with 60% of users outside Defence Estates.
• Surveyors use a GPS-enabled mobile solution to capture new data and upload it to the corporate repository. Analysts can quickly assess and communicate changes in the operational status of the estate.
• Data about historical sales and purchases of land is managed in a customised GIS called e Terrier.

Ensuring that staff understand and communicate the use and benefits of GIS is crucial to the success of the system. Over 500 staff have been formally trained in GIS by the Esri UK training team. Regular participation in the wider GIS user community is also encouraged, with regular attendance at Esri UK’s Defence Intelligence Special Interest Group (DISIG) meetings and the annual Esri International User Conference.

Defence Estates has realised a number of management benefits from the use of GIS:

Single, up-to-date view of data
Central data management and data repository ensures “one source and one version of the truth” for all Defence Estates’ geographic information. Users know they are looking at a valid version of the data. Consequently, the analysis they provide is accurate, consistent and current. This is particularly important for managing the land management lifecycle.

Lower costs, better resource usage
Holding a central copy of Ordnance Survey and other third party datasets has significantly reduced data management overheads. One team is now responsible for maintaining the corporate GIS data repository, freeing other GIS users for business-critical data capture, analysis, digital publication and cartographic map production.

Faster analysis
Mobile GIS enables environmentalists and surveyors to capture and maintain data in a timely manner. It can be used for immediate impact analysis, with any changes in the operational status of estate passed to the relevant departments. For example, when a nesting site for protected birds is identified, the surrounding training area must be decommissioned until the birds move on.

More informed decision making
GIS enables users to carry out analytical tasks such as the potential impact of wind farms on military activity or to advise where training trenches can be dug with minimal impact to surrounding archaeology, landscape and wildlife.

Enhanced management capability
Consolidating corporate data and metadata has resulted in the standardisation of data and skills, and defined stronger working practices. This has meant GIS, which was once perceived as a niche tool, to become a critical management decision-making resource – within Defence Estates and the wider MOD community.

Defence Estates aims to expand the functionality and range of services by using ArcGIS Server. For example, this will allow those planning training exercises and manoeuvres to determine the optimum locations, taking into account criteria such as supply depots, terrain, ground conditions, lines of sight and environmental sensitivity.

Outside the UK, one of the key challenges will be to expand the reach of the system to bases such as Germany and Gibraltar, as well as current military theatres.

Defence Estates also wants to share its GIS knowledge and experience with other business areas, so they can realise similar benefits from their geographic data.

Welsh Water is owned by Glas Cymru, a not-for-profit company. It provides drinking water and sanitation services to more than three million people in Wales, and some adjoining areas of England.

In November 2009, the water regulator OFWAT set tight controls over the prices that Welsh Water could charge customers. OFWAT also stipulated that the utility company must cut operating costs by one fifth to improve efficiency and enable the average household bill to fall by £30 before inflation. In a press release issued in February 2010, Welsh Water admitted that these were “the toughest efficiency targets” it had ever faced.

Welsh Water needed to consolidate its network and asset-related data, making it readily accessible to all of its 1,800 employees. In its vision for the future, everyone would be able to access precisely the information they needed to do their jobs – whether they were speaking to customers from a call centre, modelling the requirements for a new housing estate, or surveying a burst pipe in a remote village.

Welsh Water launched a wide-ranging programme of IT-enabled change, upgrading its Geographic Information System (GIS) technology as a key part of this programme. As part of its business transformation, Welsh Water decided to develop a more consistent, enterprise-wide approach that would enable it to exploit its location-based data across the organisation.

Kelvin Davies, ICT Change Manager at Welsh Water, saw a real opportunity for the business. He says: “We wanted to create a single, enterprise GIS that would present a clear view of our assets – and then take this information right out to the sharp end.” At Welsh Water, ‘the sharp end’ is what matters most. It is where customer service agents interact directly with customers and where mobile engineers interact directly with the company’s assets to survey, repair and replace them.

Welsh Water replaced three disparate legacy GIS applications with a single platform from Esri UK based on ArcGIS Server. This provided a master database for all of the organisation’s spatial data. Welsh Water deployed a utility-specific web application from Esri UK called UtilityView; allowing network maps to be easily accessed internally for office workers, and also remotely and securely for mobile engineers and partners.

Welsh Water also integrates ArcGIS with SAP business applications to create streamlined business workflows. Every notification raised in SAP against a property or an asset, is now spatially referenced.

Welsh Water can run reports in SAP to identify its worst performing assets and map them in ArcGIS to expose patterns. When ArcGIS reveals trends, such as a stretch of water main that bursts regularly, plans can be made to replace it as part of the company’s capital investment programme, ensuring that it focuses its money on precisely the areas of its network that need it most.

Using Esri technology and Esri UK solutions, Welsh Water has succeeded in making GIS capabilities more accessible and relevant to all of its 1,800 employees and 900 users at various external organisations, realising efficiency improvements right across its business. These improvements range from mobile workers accessing GIS on toughbook computers to reduce the duration of roadwork disruption and costs; through to improved safety when excavating by accessing electricity networks from partners straightaway.

Cost savings are also being made through faster network modelling using ArcGIS Desktop solutions to analyse information and identify current and future asset investment requirements. Gareth Paske from the Asset Strategy Team was one of the first employees at Welsh Water to use the new enterprise GIS. Commenting on the solution, he says: “Previously, it would take two hours to create a typical water quality drawing, but now the new system can produce ten in the same time. To identify above and below ground assets at risk of flooding might have taken five hours, but it can now be done in less than ten minutes.”

Welsh Water also recognises that its new enterprise GIS has a lower ongoing cost of ownership than its previous fragmented systems and that efficiency gains are sustainable because GIS-related maintenance costs have fallen. “There is a big difference between what the company is expending now to maintain its GIS, compared with what it used to expend,” says Davies.

GIS now plays a greater role in disaster planning and helps Welsh Water to understand and manage business risk. If there is a failure at a service reservoir or a contamination, the organisation can assess the impact of that failure more quickly and identify customers affected.