In November 2021, Storm Arwen swept across Scotland and Northern England causing catastrophic damage to woodlands and forests.  Stunned by the scale of the destruction, foresters and land owners needed to know how many trees had fallen and exactly where, to help them recover wood safely that could be used for timber production.  Fallen trees that are not harvested quickly will soon become unviable, leading to the waste of a valuable resource, increasing the release of carbon, creating a breeding ground for pests and diseases and augmenting the risks of wildfires.

In the first instance, data engineers and data scientists at Forest Research used Sentinel Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), a technology that detects changes in the forest canopy cover by measuring radio waves between satellites and the ground.  The organisation compared SAR readings from before and after Storm Arwen and created a model using machine learning techniques to identify areas where there had been a notable disturbance in canopy cover.

This initial dataset estimated the loss of around 8 million trees, providing the first indication of just how much devastation the storm had caused.  When Forest Research published its data, however, it began to receive reports from local authorities, utilities and the general public about additional areas of tree loss.  It conducted site visits to forest areas near its office in Edinburgh to see the situation on the ground, but simply didn’t have the staff required to validate its tree-loss data across all of the affected areas of Scotland and Northern England.  That’s when citizen-science was raised as a possible solution.

Forest Research had been using solutions from Esri’s ArcGIS suite for many years and was familiar with ArcGIS Hub Premium, an online data sharing platform that allows thousands of people to submit and edit data via the web or mobile apps.  It realised that it could use ArcGIS Hub Premium to engage the help of people across the industry and the general public as citizen scientists to validate its tree-loss data.

Working exceptionally quickly, Forest Research set up a dedicated landing page for the initiative on ArcGIS Hub Premium and built a mobile app using ArcGIS Survey123 to enable people to view, edit and validate data using their smartphones.  “We were able to spin up a citizen-science portal using ArcGIS Hub Premium in less than a day,” says Tony Farndon, GIS Specialist and Development Manager at Forest Research.

Forest Research shared the app with the forest industry, local councils, utilities, road departments and the general public, encouraging everyone to help validate the SAR-generated data so that it could refine its model, improve its machine learning and reach a more accurate estimate for the actual number of trees felled by the storm. Although the organisation initially had some concerns about how easy it would be for non-GIS experts to edit data in the field, the Survey123 app was widely used and delivered a large volume of quality data.

Improved confidence in the accuracy of tree-loss data
The citizen-science approach that Forest Research implemented using ArcGIS Hub Premium enabled it to quickly validate data across thousands of square miles of land throughout Scotland and Northern England and gauge the impact of Storm Arwen with far greater accuracy and confidence.  It discovered that more than two and half times more trees had been damaged than initially estimated.  “As a result of the citizen-science validation, we can now confidently estimate that 22 million trees came down in the UK on one night during Storm Arwen,” Farndon says.

Better planning for commercial timber production
Forest Research was able to share accurate information about the locations of fallen trees with organisations throughout the forestry industry.  Consequently, forestry and commercial logging companies could make faster, better decisions about where to focus their resources to harvest fallen trees before they began to degrade.  Similarly, sawmills were able to use the data to better plan how to manage the sudden surge in demand and store the additional volume of wood that would be coming to them.

More information to support sustainable forest management
Forest Research’s data is now being used to help foresters and landowners plan their ongoing clean-up activities and identify areas where action may be needed to mitigate the risks of disease and pests.  The data is also being used by tree nurseries to help them understand the volume of seeds and young trees that will be needed to replant areas devastated by the storm and ensure the sustainable management of forests and woodlands.

A proven approach for future storms
The citizen-science-led initiative that Forest Research developed in the aftermath of Storm Arwen, using ArcGIS Hub Premium and ArcGIS Survey123, has given the organisation a proven approach that it can reapply in future storm events.  “With climate change, events like Storm Arwen are estimated to happen more often,” Farndon says.  “We now have a hub, a model, a mobile data capture solution and a proven citizen-science approach that we can use to respond quickly following severe storms and gather the accurate information the forestry industry needs.”

Thirteen Group’s community resilience strategy is helping communities to become resilient and become sustainable in the long term. It focuses on understanding customers’ needs better, making the best possible use of assets and understanding how they can engage with its customers and collaborators to make a difference in a community.

Covid presented challenges, and the future can seem uncertain with rising prices, job insecurity and the threat of climate change. Thirteen Group is responding by mapping its communities and assets at local levels to offer targeted support and enable communities to thrive and become more resilient.

Thirteen Group has been using Esri’s ArcGIS solutions since 2010. Initially they used ArcGIS to plan maintenance of their properties and grounds. Now more departments use ArcGIS and they have added ArcGIS Online and Esri’s Living Atlas to learn more about their communities.

In housing, mapping communities is key. It relates homes to external data such as the managing authority, LSOA, ward and the built environment. It also shows the proximity to towns and transport. Thirteen Group maps all of this data and then uses the multi-criteria analysis and widgets in ArcGIS to manipulate the data and present it in the required way.

ArcGIS Online allows them to share the data with selected colleagues. Colleagues can then click on a location and drill down to interrogate the information.

Rebecca Dick, GIS Lead, Thirteen Group, says: “A data table of addresses will not show you that one street backs onto another. We use ArcGIS to map and see the entire picture of the housing services we manage, in the context of the local communities”.

By using the system, they have been able to:

Map their housing datasets in ArcGIS to reveal the hotspots for housing demand and identify areas with many empty homes.

Overlay their data with data from partners, such as the local authorities, schools, charities and universities. They add data from Esri’s Living Atlas, the foremost repository of geospatial data in the world. Combining data reveals how communities differ and shows where they should target resources. The datasets from ArcGIS form the basis for collaboration and customer consultations and enable targeted interventions in communities.

Create a ranking system in ArcGIS that shows where to focus new services and who would benefit from them.

Study the impact of recent capital investments and measure how projects have impacted our communities.

Highlighting local issues helps operations
ArcGIS presents a clear view of the factors affecting communities and the hotspots for frontline services. It helps to manage factors such as the turnover of tenants and debt that increase costs, and target resources to improve customer satisfaction. It is very easy to understand the maps because they are visual. The team particularly like the interactive maps and heat spots because they are so intuitive and easy to understand.

A better understanding of how to support communities
Thirteen Group is using ArcGIS to map the social and environmental factors affecting their communities and understand their needs at a grassroot level. The information is then used to tailor initiatives to individual areas. For example, they have mapped areas of high crime and overlaid the data with neighbourhood watch areas. Their teams then worked with the community to help establish new Neighbourhood Watch groups. They have also mapped areas with unemployment and high arrears and overlaid the data with local support services to identify any gaps. The information has then been used to develop interventions within the community, such as eco shops, employment and skills academies, as well as benefit campaigns.

ArcGIS helps with planning and grant applications
ArcGIS shows where demand for homes is greatest and where it could become even higher. It helps target areas of focus and look for development opportunities. The data supports their applications for grants and community renewal funds. It is important that they can make evidence-based decisions, supported by data from ArcGIS.

ArcGIS can also show why certain areas are given priority for resources. Thirteen Group can track the impact of interventions over time to understand how they are helping customers, and if there should be requests from the community, the GIS data allows them to respond in an informed way.

Partnerships are more effective with ArcGIS
Housing associations need to collaborate with partners. ArcGIS enables Thirteen Group to map their partners’ amenities in relation to their own communities and work more effectively with the partners without silos or duplication of services. Where there is a particular community need, they can signpost customers to the right partner. Where a service works well in one community, they might repeat it in another area with a similar situation and profile.

Transport Scotland had an important, yet complex, question to answer.  How should the public transport network in Scotland be developed over the next twenty years to make it accessible to more people, encourage more sustainable travel choices and support the Scottish economy?  It launched a Strategic Transport Project Review and appointed Jacobs to help it gather the data and insight it needed to enable ministers to make evidence-based decisions about future investments in public transport services.

The challenge for Jacobs was enormous.  Existing public transportation modelling tools had considerable limitations, and public transport behaviour could not be reported or analysed at national, regional and local levels.  Jacobs therefore set out to create a new tool for analysing, modelling and displaying transportation data that could be used easily by many teams for different purposes during the Strategic Transport Project Review and other projects in the future.

A specialist geographic information system (GIS) team at Jacobs built the new solution using Esri’s ArcGIS software and ArcGIS web apps in combination with other technologies.  Called the National Public Transport Accessibility Tool (NaPTAT), it considers over 2 million potential journey origin points (from a 200m x 200m grid), takes into account the frequency of public transport services from over 53,000 public transport stops and calculates journey times to over 7,000 key destinations relating to employment, education, healthcare, retail and food stores.

Jacobs used the Network Analyst capabilities of ArcGIS Pro to calculate the distance and walking or cycling time between each point of journey origin and the nearest public transport stops, within a threshold distance.  It then used the Network Analyst outputs and Python scripting to calculate specific accessibility scores based on the number of public transport stops nearby, the distance away and the frequency of services at these locations.  “ArcGIS Pro was one of the most important solutions we used, as it helped identify public transport in the vicinity of each point of origin, as well as the destinations that can be directly accessed by walking or cycling from any of the origin points,” explains Jaime Rodriguez Gozalo, Principal GIS Consultant at Jacobs.

Next, Jacobs used ArcGIS Online to build a web app that enables people to visualise the transportation data on an interactive map of Scotland alongside relevant third party data, such as the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.  Users can zoom into the map, turn different layers of data on and off and interrogate the data to gain insight.

As a further extension to NaPTAT, Jacobs also created a series of interactive ArcGIS Dashboards, enabling users to not only view the data but also customise it for their own study.  One dashboard displays the current performance of public transport in Scotland, while another shows comparisons between the current status (baseline results) and modelled improvement scenarios.

Improved understanding of public transport accessibility
ArcGIS Pro and Network Analyst provide the core analysis capabilities of the NaPTAT solution, revealing just how accessible public transport services are, at each location and for discrete groups, such as people travelling to employment in urban areas, as compared to rural jobs.  Recognising the key role played by ArcGIS in NaPTAT, Kyle Chesney, Principal Transport Planner at Jacobs, says, “The spatial components of the tool were imperative to assist in analysing the public transport accessibility across Scotland.”

Clear visualisations of complex, nationwide data
ArcGIS Online is another core component of the NaPTAT solution, as it has enabled Jacobs to display the results of its nationwide transportation analysis in a highly visual way, on interactive maps and dashboards.  Consequently, it is much easier for users to identify previously hidden patterns and accessibility issues.  “We were not only able to create one single, detailed database of results, but we were able to really go to town using Esri’s online suite of applications to display this in the best way possible for all the teams involved in the project,” says Leigh Wilson, GIS Analyst, Jacobs.

A flexible, easy-to-use analysis tool
Using ArcGIS Online, Jacobs has been able to build a tool that is incredibly easy for people from a wide variety of teams to use, without having to reach out to the GIS team for support.  The ArcGIS Dashboards for example, give users just the information they need, in a format that they can easily interact with to find the answers to their questions.  “The data, information and conclusions can all be interrogated, filtered and used by anyone,” Wilson says.  “You really don’t need to know how to use GIS to analyse these results or make any sort of calculations.”

Tangible evidence to inform future transport investments
Most importantly, the NaPTAT solution has met the needs of Transport Scotland and is now being used to gather evidence to inform new public investments.  For example, users can clearly see on the ArcGIS Dashboard that proposed changes to the transportation network in the Edinburgh and South East region will enable over 25,000 more people to access a hospital in under 30 minutes, in what will be a major improvement to the public transport network.

With 300 million mobile customers worldwide, Vodafone’s aims are to keep people, businesses and communities connected and help build a digital future for everyone.  The company is at the forefront of the 5G revolution in the UK, but high frequency mobile services like 5G require a clear line of sight to operate effectively.  If a new building is constructed, an existing building is extended or tree growth occurs, this line of sight can be obstructed, resulting in a degradation in mobile signal strength.  Consequently, Vodafone needs to proactively monitor new buildings and tree sizes and plan proactive network enhancements to mitigate the impacts of this ‘clutter’ and maintain a high quality of service for customers.

Vodafone had begun to invest in 3D modelling and explore potential uses for a digital twin – a virtual, 3D representation of the mobile network and the surrounding environment. Rebecca King, former Geographic Information System (GIS) Lead at Vodafone says, “When I first started doing GIS, digital twin was not a possibility, but the technologies have developed so much that we can make digital twin a reality now.”

Soon, the organisation realised that a digital twin could prove invaluable in helping it to identify clutter.  “It occurred to our team, what if we could create a digital twin for connectivity across the UK,” explains Boris Pitchforth, Lead Architect at Vodafone.  “It would surely make our system more robust if we could scrutinise the topography of the environment and assess the impacts of tree growth or new construction developments on signal strength and network performance.”

Energised by this vision, Vodafone used ArcGIS Enterprise to model its UK assets and the wider environment in 3D and added relevant data sets to create and enrich a digital twin.  Described by Boris Pitchforth as a “really immersive experience,” the project enabled Vodafone to gain a 360 degree view of its communications network in the UK and how it operates.  “Using ArcGIS Enterprise and cloud infrastructure capabilities, we have been able to create something special,” he says.

Unprecedented understanding of mobile network
The digital twin created with ArcGIS Enterprise gives Vodafone a detailed view of its UK mobile network and the wider environment for the first time.  Employees can see, in one place, on a single map, over 40 million environmental features, such as trees, hills and buildings, and nearly 500,000 network features like mobile phone masts.  “Our ArcGIS digital twin is giving us an unprecedented understanding of our entire UK network,” says Johenny King Puente, Network Specialist at Vodafone.  “With this level of detail we can make decisions faster and with more accuracy.”

Fantastic service for millions of customers
Most significantly, the digital twin makes it easier for Vodafone to identify changes in the environment and identify clutter that might be causing a degradation in service.  As a result, the company’s engineers can implement mitigations more quickly to deliver a more consistent service to customers.  “Our customers are really important to us here at Vodafone and we believe, with the help of this new digital twin, we can continue to deliver fantastic service to our millions of customers,” Boris Pitchforth says.

Improved operational efficiency
Through the ongoing use of the digital twin, Vodafone expects to be able to make significant and sustained operational efficiencies.  For example, engineers now have detailed information available at their fingertips, all in one place, and spend less time looking for the data they need.  The 3D models also give engineers a good understanding of the wider environment and locations of clutter, from their desks or using mobile devices, enabling them to make well-informed decisions more quickly and accelerate business processes.

Lower carbon emissions
Like most organisations, Vodafone is working hard to reduce the environmental impacts of its operations and it believes that its digital twin will help it achieve its ambitious target for carbon emissions.  Already the digital twin is helping by reducing the number of field trips and site visits that engineers need to make.  “We have pledged to eliminate carbon emissions from our operations by 2027,” Boris Pitchforth says.  “With operational developments and innovations like digital twins, we can achieve this.”

For over thirty years, Historic England, its predecessor organisations and other heritage bodies funded by it have been identifying, mapping and recording England’s archaeological sites using aerial photographs and, more recently, airborne laser scanning (lidar).  In addition, Historic England has amassed over 6 million oblique and vertical photographs recording England’s changing landscape over the past century.

Recognising the huge value of these resources, Historic England wanted to find a way to share its vast archive of archaeological mapping data and images in a way that would be accessible to everyone.  First, however, it had to overcome the formidable challenges posed by digitising, standardising and consolidating resources that were in a myriad of different digital and paper-based formats.

A long-time user of products from Esri’s ArcGIS suite of geographic information system (GIS) solutions, Historic England began by using ArcGIS Pro on the desktop to clean up its historic data.  ArcGIS Pro was particularly effective at processing old computer-aided design (CAD) files, eliminating errors and inconsistencies to create a standardised output.  “Using desktop GIS software gave us a way of quality controlling our data in a way that was impossible in a CAD environment,” says Simon Crutchley, Remote Sensing Development Manager at Historic England.

Next, the organisation explored ways to visualise and share its data and maps.  It began by creating an ArcGIS StoryMap with ArcGIS Online to enable people to explore Historic England’s aerial imagery of Capability Brown gardens.  The StoryMap highlighted all sites associated with the renowned landscape designer across England and allowed people to click on individual locations to access more information.  “The Capability Brown StoryMap became a proof-of-concept for how we might use ArcGIS to provide all our digital maps and imagery to a wider public,” Crutchley says.

The organisation went on to create the ground-breaking Aerial Archaeology Mapping Explorer app (AAME).  Built using ArcGIS Web AppBuilder, this solution provides easy access to all the mapping and interpretation work carried out by Historic England’s Aerial Survey team, in one place, to a standardised level, for the first time.  It includes a query tool and allows users to zoom into specific archaeological features, such as camps along Hadrian’s wall.  Clicking on these features brings up details about the type of camp, its age and how it appears today with hyperlinks to more historical information.

To complement AAME, Historic England subsequently created another app with ArcGIS Web AppBuilder, called the Aerial Photo Explorer app (APEX), for sharing original photographs.  Currently, around 400,000 specialist oblique photographs and 50,000 vertical photographs of archaeological sites are available via APEX, in full resolution.  The organisation aims to steadily share more of it 6 million images using APEX and future solutions built with ArcGIS Experience Builder.

Improved public access to specialist resources
Anyone interested in local history can now use AAME to gain easy access to over thirty years of mapping and interpretation carried out by Historic England and other organisations grant-aided by it.  People can also explore over 450,000 images using APEX to find out more about historic sites.   “The combination of the desktop and web-based ArcGIS software made a real difference; we could not have got to where we are without using them,” Crutchley says.

Tailored apps for specific projects
Using ArcGIS, Historic England can quickly build tailored apps that make data and imagery relating to specific projects available in an accessible and meaningful format.  For example, Historic England used ArcGIS Web AppBuilder to create a dedicated interactive map of Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, one of the best-preserved First World War sites in England.  The map enabled Historic England to share lidar imagery and other data with a large number of local volunteers who were involved in a project to assess the remains of camps where 500,000 men trained before heading to the front line.

Deeper understanding of archaeological sites
Together, AAME, APEX and Historic England’s project-specific mapping apps are helping people to better understand archaeological sites, by making a wide range of resources more accessible to more people than ever before.  “A collection of photographs on its own doesn’t constitute knowledge,” Crutchley explains.  “It is only by bringing together imagery, mapping and reports and presenting it all geospatially on an interactive digital map, that we can help people gain a deeper understanding of the archaeology of England.”

A positive response from the public
The public response to Historic England’s ArcGIS apps has been incredibly positive.  When, for example, AAME was launched, the story received 33,560 news page views and generated 37 pieces of media, making it Historic England’s best ever website news story to date.  Then, in the first three months alone, it received over 137,000 views.  “The success of the launch showed us that people were interested – not just in the historic environment, but in maps specifically,” Crutchley says.  “People are interested in England’s historic places if they can find information easily in an accessible form, and that’s what we’ve been able to deliver in the Archaeological Mapping Explorer.”

As the transport arm of the West Midlands Combined Authority, Transport for West Midlands was – from the outset – heavily involved in planning for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.  This high-profiled, international competition was the largest multi-sport event ever to take place in the West Midlands and was due to attract over a million spectators from outside the region, as well as world-leading sportspeople, trainers, media and visiting dignitaries.

Early in the planning process, Transport for West Midlands discovered that three of its partner organisations were using slightly different versions of the Games Route Network, a map showing all the priority routes that athletes would be taking from their accommodation to various venues around the city.  The Games Route Network was, however, just one of over fifty maps showing operational data relating to the event, and there were about thirty initial stakeholders.  Transport for West Midlands was concerned that if all of the partners had different versions of all the maps, people in these organisations could inadvertently make decisions based on obsolete information.

Transport for West Midlands is a long-standing user of Esri geographic information system (GIS) technology so it immediately explored Esri’s ArcGIS suite for a solution to this challenge.  It discovered ArcGIS Hub and quickly set about using this easy-to-configure, cloud-based collaboration platform to enable it to share up-to-date data securely with all of the organisations involved in the planning of the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

In the lead-up to the event, Transport for West Midlands shared 62 different data sets via ArcGIS Hub on everything from sporting venues and marathon routes to the locations of emergency facilities and public transport diversions.  Partners could, for example, log in to view or download the most accurate map of the Games Route Network, as well as maps showing traffic management plans around key venues.  Eventually, over 50 organisations signed up to use ArcGIS Hub, including local authorities, utilities, transportation companies, logistics providers and emergency services.

Partners found the ArcGIS Hub very simple and straightforward to use.  Any organisations that did not have in-house GIS expertise could access and view data, documents, apps and maps from within the hub.  Meanwhile, other organisations could download the data they needed, in the format of their choice, directly into their internal GIS systems, and more than 7,500 downloads were made in total.  An application programming interface (API) embedded in the hub automatically sent out alerts to partners when revised versions of datasets became available to ensure they were always using current data.

Better collaboration, with one version of the truth
Using ArcGIS Hub, Transport for West Midlands was able to provide a single source of data that all partners in the region could use to make sure that their planning was based on the most up-to-date information.  This undoubtedly improved collaboration between the dozens of public and private-sector organisations involved in coordinating what was a large-scale and complex, international event.  “During planning for the Commonwealth Games, things changed frequently,” recalls Liz Brannan, Mapping Analyst at Transport for West Midlands.  “Despite the fast-evolving situation, ArcGIS Hub ensured everyone was working from the same version of the truth, all the time.”

Effective planning for a major event
By making information about the 2022 Commonwealth Games more easily accessible, the ArcGIS Hub supported the planning processes of around 50 organisations.  Utilities companies used data from ArcGIS Hub to plan emergency works to avoid unnecessary traffic disruption in the build-up to the games, while courier companies used ArcGIS Hub to notify customers in advance of potential delays in areas where cycling time-trials and running events were due to take place on local roads.  “The number of organisations that signed up to use the ArcGIS Hub showed just how valuable it was,” Brannan says.  “ArcGIS Hub allowed everyone to view the same data, at the same time, and make their plans without duplicating effort.”

Reliable information to support emergency services
Critically, ArcGIS Hub provided reliable information that could be depended upon by emergency services, including the ambulance service, fire service and police in the West Midlands.  As a result, these organisations could plan ahead and put measures in place to help them respond effectively to incidents when they needed to.  They could see in advance, for example, which roads were going to be closed for marathon events, identify the locations of check points and find alternative routes to avoid areas that might be crowded with spectators walking to or from venues.

Inclusive approach to sharing data
The ArcGIS Hub proved particularly successful in making data accessible to GIS experts and non-GIS users alike.  It was used by large organisations including the water utility and the University of Birmingham, as well as small local charities.  “Our ArcGIS Hub for the Commonwealth Games enabled us to bring partners of all kinds and all sizes together to share the best quality data,” explains Brannan.  “ArcGIS Hub broke the barrier between GIS users and those who don’t work with GIS every day, enabling all of our partners to access quality data on demand.”

Through a ground-breaking asset evaluation initiative, National Highways valued its data at £60 billion and discovered that geospatial data was the most used and most critical data asset of all.  This realisation quickly elevated the conversation about geospatial data to a senior level within the organisation, and National Highways began to consider how it could use geospatial data more effectively.  Some of its key data sets relating to the national road network were inconsistent, and its use of a myriad of different systems for storing, editing and viewing geospatial data was hampering innovation.

With its new appreciation for the value of geospatial data, National Highways took the strategic decision to centralise its geospatial data and services, creating a single ‘Spatial Portal’ for the whole organisation.  It selected Esri UK’s Managed Cloud Service and began to use solutions from Esri’s ArcGIS system, including Esri’s ArcGIS Enterprise and ArcGIS Online, to replace its many existing, disparate departmental geographic information system (GIS) applications.

As a critical part of this transition, National Highways used Esri’s Sweet for ArcGIS app to help it consolidate road network data from several legacy systems and create one comprehensive digital model of the national road network.  The organisation took advantage of the built-in quality checking capabilities of Sweet to create a single, accurate source of the truth that could be depended upon by all employees, across the business.

With support from Esri UK’s Professional Services group, National Highways then used the ArcGIS system to build a wide range of apps, data models and other GIS services to enable employees to make better use of geospatial data as a part of their day-to-day roles.  Chief amongst these solutions is a new operational system that helps 400 operational staff at National Highways to manage disruption to the road network.  This pivotal solution uses ArcGIS Velocity to display multiple feeds of real-time data, from weather forecasts from the Met Office and the live locations of gritting lorries to crowd-sourced traffic data from WAZE and up-to-the-minute reports of road incidents.

National Highways has also used ArcGIS Hub and ArcGIS Survey123 to help it engage the public in a consultation called ‘Route Strategies’, about the future of the national road network.  Individuals could explore the road network online and click on sections of road to comment on them.  This use of ArcGIS Hub and ArcGIS Survey123 proved very effective within the consultation period.

Enterprise-wide efficiency gains
Now, for the first time, all employees at National Highways have the same, accurate digital view of the road network, whether they work in planning, ecology, major projects or operations. Furthermore, this road network data is accessible to more people and is easier to use in a wider variety of projects, all of which improves efficiency throughout the business.  “Around 4,000 people now use National Highways’ geospatial data,” says Jon Drea, Head of Data Science at National Highways.  “This clearly shows how, in just two years, our ArcGIS system has become front and centre in how we work.”

Increased value from geospatial data assets
While National Highways already valued its geospatial data highly, the organisation is now undoubtedly gaining increased value from its geospatial data assets by using the ArcGIS System to develop new solutions such as the operational system and the public consultation hub.  “ArcGIS is helping us to maximise the value that we gain from our geospatial data, by enabling us to use it in really different use cases, from analysing live traffic flow to engaging with stakeholders and strategic planning,” Drea says.

More information about road traffic incidents
Of the many new solutions that National Highways has introduced since migrating to the ArcGIS system, the operational capability has delivered significant benefits.  It provides an accurate digital representation of the entire national network of trunk roads, together with real-time data on traffic, weather and road closures, equipping staff with more information about road traffic incidents.  “We can continue to react to incidents in near real-time with more information available, which helps us to provide a better experience for road users,” explains Drea.

Reduced total cost of GIS ownership
Driven by the dual goals to ‘reuse and consolidate’, National Highways has, over a two-year period, replaced more than a dozen standalone GIS applications with ArcGIS Enterprise, reducing total GIS costs by more than 10% to date.  More legacy systems are due to be retired in the near future and the upcoming replacement of a geospatial system for viewing survey data is expected to deliver an annual cost saving of £250,000 alone.

Rapid delivery of decision-support tools
One of the key advantages of National Highways’ consolidated approach to GIS is that the organisation can now use its central ArcGIS Enterprise system to spin up new apps, data models and decision-support tools very quickly, on demand.  Providing an example, Drea recalls: “When Britain left the EU, we built a solution to model scenarios for traffic disruption around ports.  We published a dashboard to show the impacts of the potential congestion, really quickly, which supported decision making and helped us understand traffic flow.”

In popular tourist destinations, a careful balance has to be found between meeting the needs of visitors, supporting the local economy and protecting the natural environment.  Finding this balance is a particular challenge along the coast of East Lothian.  77% of people who visit the county go to the beach, but most visitors tended to head for the same, well-known coastal car parks, which often led to traffic congestion, frustration for drivers and unsustainable pressure on the environment in these tourist hotspots.

East Lothian Council wanted to increase the movement of visitors around the area and encourage visitors to go to less popular, but equally beautiful beaches just a little further along the coast.  At the same time, it wanted to make visitors more aware of local businesses not far from beaches, to support growth in the local economy.

An innovative solution to this challenge was developed for East Lothian Council by EDINA, a directorate within the Information Services Group at The University of Edinburgh, with government funding through the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal.

EDINA worked with the university’s Internet of Things Data Technology Group, which set up sensors at ten car parks across the region.  EDINA then built a mobile app using ArcGIS AppStudio to display live data from the sensors and show the number of cars entering and leaving car parks.  Called ‘Visit East Lothian’, the Android and iPhone app displays a list of beach car parks and uses the remotely sensed data to show, for each, whether the car parks are full, very  busy, busy or quiet.  Users can scroll through the different beaches for more information and see nearby businesses, such as cafes, museums and accommodation.

“Visit East Lothian combines live information on traffic movements with geospatial data on the nearest local amenities,” explains Anne Robertson, Head of Services at EDINA.  “This project is a great example of data driven innovation in the public sector and demonstrates the real value that can be derived from combining geospatial technology with the Internet of Things.”

Alongside the Visit East Lothian app, EDINA built an ArcGIS Survey123 app, enabling rangers to adjust car park occupancy rates manually, if necessary.  EDINA also created an ArcGIS Dashboard for council staff that provides more detailed, live information about the concentration of visitors along the coast.  “The ArcGIS Dashboard shows the council what the situation is, right now,” clarifies Guy McGarva, Geospatial Consultancy Services Manager at EDINA.  “Council employees can see the precise number of available spaces across all car parks and monitor real-time trends in car park utilisation, from their desktops, for the first time.”

An improved visitor experience
The Visit East Lothian app improves the visitor experience by showing people which beach car parks are busy and helping them discover other nearby beaches that are less crowded.  Promoted through various media, the app was very well received and downloaded 2,350 times in the first four months alone.  “The visitor experience is crucial for the tourism industry; if people don’t have a good time, they won’t come back,” says Claire Dutton, Tourism Officer at East Lothian Council.  “The Visit East Lothian app directs people away from busy beaches to quieter ones and helps them to enjoy more of the region’s coastline and local amenities.”

Proactive management of congestion
The ArcGIS Dashboard gives the council live information which it can use to better manage visitor numbers at specific locations and anticipate where issues may arise.  Rangers can see the car parks that are filling up quickly, foresee traffic congestion, open overflow car parks and take other measures to reduce the adverse impacts of tourism traffic on local residents.  Traffic officers can also use the app to ensure they focus their time on patrolling the busiest car parks.  “We can be much more proactive now and intervene to help prevent and alleviate overcrowding issues at popular beach car parks,” Dutton says.

Reduced pressure on the natural environment
East Lothian Council is a strong advocate of responsible tourism and supports a variety of initiatives that encourage people to respect and protect the coast and countryside of East Lothian.  By helping to distribute visitors more evenly along the coastline, the Visit East Lothian app will help to reduce issues such as overflowing bins and parking on verges, which can harm wildlife and damage fragile habitats.  In the future, the council could put messaging on the app to direct people away from specific locations at certain times of the year, such as during bird nesting times.

A welcome boost to the local economy
The Visit East Lothian app supports the local economy by promoting East Lothian’s tourism businesses.  Users of the app can search near their current location or near a specific car park to find information about local cafes, restaurants, museums, shops and other businesses.  “Tourism is vital to the economy of East Lothian and employs 10% of the local workforce,” explains Dutton.  “The Visit East Lothian app raises awareness of local businesses and therefore helps to encourage visitors to enjoy more of the many amenities East Lothian has to offer.”

In the insurance and reinsurance industry, understanding exposure to risk is critical.  Insurers need to know where clients’ assets may be, whether these are physical assets on the ground or other less tangible assets that are fundamental for global supply chains.  From a simple address, they need to be able to separate the multi-storey buildings and high-value distribution centres from low priority offices and car parks.  Then, they need to identify if and when these assets might be exposed to a diverse range of risks, from climate change and storm damage to social unrest and war.

Operating in 140 countries, WTW uses Esri’s geographic information system (GIS) suite, ArcGIS, to help it not only assess risks at each of its clients’ locations, but also constantly monitor changes in risk levels in real-time.  Different teams and business units within WTW’s 45,000-person workforce use a range of Esri desktop and web-based solutions as part of their day-to-day roles.

WTW hosts its geospatial data in ArcGIS Enterprise, which hosts a number of internal and external applications, as well as risk models for clients.  Specialist users within the analyst community use ArcGIS Pro for desktop analysis, while other employees use a simple ArcGIS portal application to view and share maps and analysis or use ArcGIS for Microsoft BI to import maps into reports.  “The diversity of the ArcGIS product suite means that it can be used in different ways, by different levels of users, from expert GIS analysts and climate scientists to insurance brokers with no GIS experience,” says Sharon Palmer, Director of Risk Analytics, Platforms and Technology at WTW.

One key tool that has been developed using ArcGIS is Global Peril Diagnostics (GPD), which consolidates and analyses risk data from a variety of sources.  It includes a module for analysing complex global supply chains and another for monitoring live events, such as the approach of a tropical storm.  GPD uses ArcGIS map services to identify when clients have assets in the projected path of a storm or in the vicinity of an earthquake and sends them an automated alert. Used by the corporate risk brokering division of the business, GPD plays a vital role in helping WTW to understand and screen risks around the world.

Climate change is now recognised as a significant future risk, and WTW uses ArcGIS to provide clients with specialist advice in this area.  ArcGIS Pro is used in the delivery of the firm’s Climate Quantified™ service, as it allows data scientists to model hazards and vulnerabilities and quantify physical and transition risks around the world in different climate scenarios.  WTW has also developed a model called Climate Diagnostic, using ArcGIS, that is used by employees and clients to visualise actual and predicted changes in climate hazards, such as extreme wind, sea level rises and heat stress.

Deep understanding of static and transitory risks
ArcGIS is a key tool that gives WTW a deep understanding of risk.  Increasingly, WTW is now using ArcGIS to extend its analysis beyond business assets to entire supply chains, with sophisticated supply chain risk models.  The organisation can, for example, now model how a flood at a factory that supplies a significant component could disrupt the client’s manufacturing processes, as well as explore transportation risks, whether by sea, road, air or rail.  “ArcGIS is helping us to extend our capabilities from static risks to transitory risks,” Palmer says.

Live intelligence about potentially disruptive events
Pivotal new tools, developed with ArcGIS, give WTW the ability to see not just the path of a storm, but where clients’ assets are in relation to that storm, which clients will be most impacted and, more specifically, which clients will be  affected with greatest severity. “ArcGIS gives us geospatial analytics on the fly!” Palmer explains.  “When events like earthquakes and storms occur, we can notify clients quickly and help them implement mitigations locally to limit damage and business disruption.”

Value adding risk management services for clients
The versatility of ArcGIS gives WTW the capability to develop and deliver new client services.  It can, for example, create client-specific analytical models to help clients understand specific risks at their global locations.  Clients can then use this information to make decisions about where to open new offices and which facilities to expand based on a better understanding of risks at these locations.  In the future, WTW plans to develop more ArcGIS-enabled apps that will allow clients to self-serve information about their risk profiles around the world.

Tangible information about climate change
ArcGIS is proving particularly invaluable in helping WTW and its clients to better understand emerging and changing risks relating to climate change.  The Climate Diagnostic tool makes it easier for people to visualise changes over time, at specific locations, and comprehend how climate-related hazards could impact specific operations, properties and asset portfolios in the future.  As Palmer says, “ArcGIS enables us to take abstract data about climate and turn it into tangible information about risk that is specific to our clients.  It’s a huge help in a changing world.”

Covering a vast area of over 4,500 km², the Forth district includes all rivers, streams and burns that flow into the Firth of Forth Estuary in Scotland.  The area is a haven for diverse wildlife species and a popular destination for recreation, but its future is threatened by pollution, past and future development and climate change.  The Forth Rivers Trust wanted to make people more aware of the pressures on these river catchments and secure funding for new projects to improve river environments, but feared that its reports were not reaching a sufficiently wide audience.

At the same time, the Forth Rivers Trust wanted to improve the quality of the data that it relied on for evidencing the need for conservation projects and monitoring the success of its interventions.  Much of its data was collected laboriously using pen and paper, and a great deal of time was subsequently required to digitise it.  Precise location references could not be recorded, and the trust’s employees had no way of viewing or editing data in the field.

Forth Rivers Trust initially decided to leverage Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform to transform its five-year river management plans from static pdf documents into highly visual, interactive digital narratives.  The first of these pioneering new plans covered the Forth and Teith river catchments and used an ArcGIS StoryMap template to make detailed information about the pressures on these key river environments more engaging for partners, stakeholders, grant-givers and the general public.

As part of the process of creating the StoryMap, Forth Rivers Trust had to digitise a large amount of historic data, as well as clean, edit, merge and standardise all of the organisation’s existing datasets.  This data preparation was time-consuming, but paved the way for the trust to gain even more value from its data assets.  “Once we had put all our data into ArcGIS Online for the StoryMap, we were only a few small steps away from making it possible for our staff to amend, edit, query and collect data in the field,” says Michiel Voermans, Data and GIS Officer at Forth Rivers Trust.

Consequently, soon after the launch of the StoryMap, Forth Rivers Trust created a mobile solution with ArcGIS Field Maps that allows conservationists, ecologists and other staff members to view, collect and edit data in the field. The Field Maps app is very easy and intuitive for anyone to use on mobile phones, enabling the trust to capture accurate information and locations on issues including invasive species, sewerage outflows and river barriers.

Following the success of ArcGIS Field Maps, Forth Rivers Trust also began to use an Esri SWEET app to help it conduct complex phase one habitat surveys.  Easy to use for non-GIS experts, this Esri-deigned solution allows ecologists to capture detailed information, pictures and locations and map everything they see digitally on tablets, while in the field.

Raised public awareness of river pressures
By converting its river management plans into ArcGIS StoryMaps, Forth Rivers Trust is able to reach a wider audience and improve public understanding of the diverse challenges for river catchment areas.  “Our Forth and Teith Catchment Management Plan StoryMap received 2,400 views in the first year, whereas a pdf plan would not have reached 10% of this number, even in five years,” says Voermans.  “ArcGIS StoryMaps enable us to engage with more people, raise awareness of the pressures on river catchments and highlight opportunities for improvement.”

Living – not static – management plans
With its new StoryMap approach, Forth Rivers Trust has been able to turn its static, pdf river management plans into living documents that can be updated regularly as new information becomes available.  The organisation can, for example, share up-to-date information on the status of projects, such as removing man-made barriers to fish migration.  It no longer has to produce new plans every five years, as unlike the pdf plans, the StoryMap plans don’t get out-of-date.  “ArcGIS has enabled us to take a huge leap forwards in the way that we monitor river catchments and plan new management schemes to protect and regenerate these vibrant and diverse environments,” Voermans says.

Up to 50% time savings on habitat surveys
As the organisation no longer has to digitise data collected on paper in the field, it is saving a tremendous amount of time.  “Digitising habitat data and hand-drawn maps in the office can take as much time as conducting the survey in the field,” Voermans explains. “Our use of Esri mobile data capture solutions is, therefore, leading to a time saving of up to 50%.”

Better data for grant applications
ArcGIS Field Maps and the Esri SWEET app enable Forth Rivers Trust to capture more accurate, location-specific data and gain clear evidence to support bids for funding for new river restoration schemes.  The data improvements also help the organisation to more precisely monitor the success of its interventions and continually strengthen the case for improving river environments for wildlife, communities and visitors alike.  “Our role is to give a voice to the rivers,” says Voermans, “and ArcGIS helps us to do this.”