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.”

Within the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland (OSNI), there is a group of highly skilled geographic information system (GIS) experts known as the Northern Ireland Mapping Agreement (NIMA) Support Team.  These specialists provide geospatial advice and services for a wide range of stakeholders in government departments and other public sector bodies.

Since its inception in 2009, the NIMA Support Team has used Esri’s ArcGIS suite of solutions to help customers and stakeholders find answers to complex questions on topics ranging from changes in the natural environment to public health concerns and the delivery of government services for citizens.  The data and mapping products generated by the team with ArcGIS are used to evidence, support and inform government policies, so it is imperative for the team to be able to optimise their use of the latest technologies and apply the most advanced geospatial techniques and analyses.

OSNI leverages a variety of ArcGIS training courses from Esri UK & Ireland annually.  New and existing members of the NIMA Support Team take part in at least three courses per year, which helps the organisation to ensure that everyone’s skills are at the same level.  Recent courses provided by Esri UK & Ireland for OSNI include ‘Getting started with Lidar’, ‘Creating and Editing Data with ArcGIS Pro,’ ‘Creating Web Applications using Web AppBuilder for ArcGIS’ and ‘Sharing GIS Content using ArcGIS.’

Previously, OSNI selected classroom-style courses that took place in Belfast, Aylesbury or Dublin or at its own premises.  However, to maintain its training programme during the COVID-19 pandemic, the organisation started to take advantage of Esri UK & Ireland’s virtual courses.  Its experience with this new training format was so positive that the organisation now consistently leverages Esri UK & Ireland’s catalogue of virtual courses.

Employees who are taking part in virtual ArcGIS training courses do not have to have ArcGIS software installed on their local devices, as all of the technology needed for the course is delivered via web-based applications.  The trainer can see everyone’s screens and intervene to provide one-on-one support to anyone who needs it during exercises.  “I like the technology that Esri UK & Ireland has employed for its virtual courses,” says Rico Santiago, Deputy Head of Business Development, Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.  “Esri UK and Ireland's virtual platform facilitates effective learning from the comfort of our own homes.”

The Learning Services group at Esri UK & Ireland offers a variety of one, two and three-day virtual courses, suitable for newcomers to GIS and experienced users.  As well as open courses, which can be attended by anyone, it can deliver dedicated courses, exclusively for employees from one company.  All virtual courses can accommodate up to twelve participants, and OSNI generally books dedicated courses, just for OSNI employees, to enable it to train large numbers of people at the same time and focus on OSNI-specific use cases throughout the course.

Convenient and cost-effective virtual training
OSNI has discovered that virtual training is significantly more convenient and cost-effective than traditional classroom style courses and just as effective.  “Esri UK & Ireland’s virtual courses provide the same high-quality learning, from certified trainers, without the expense of travel,” Santiago says.  “While I sometimes miss the face-to-face interaction of a traditional in-person course, the virtual platform is able to facilitate real-time feedback and engagement with classmates and trainers and does so while delivering value for money.  I feel the pros of remote training outweigh the cons.”

Training available to more employees
By booking dedicated virtual courses for up to twelve of its employees at a time, OSNI benefits from cost efficiencies and can make training available to more people, beyond the twenty-seven members of the NIMA Support Team.  In 2021, for example, the virtual training programme was extended to ten additional people from other OSNI teams, and thirty seven employees benefited from ArcGIS learning services in total.

Up-to-date skills for delivering specialist services
Providing regular training for members of the NIMA Support Team helps OSNI to uphold the reputation of this specialist group.  “Customers and stakeholders come to us for expert GIS services and support,” Santiago explains.  “Esri UK & Ireland’s learning services keep our ArcGIS skills up-to-date and enable us to continue to live up to and exceed our reputation as the geospatial and mapping specialists within the public sector in Northern Ireland.”

Confidence in work for government stakeholders
The regular ArcGIS training that OSNI employees receive enables them to support their government stakeholders with confidence.  In recent projects, expert GIS users have worked with the Department of Health and The Executive Office to support the COVID-19 response in Northern Ireland.  They have also supported a variety of schemes with the Department of Infrastructure, using the latest ArcGIS functionality to address complex issues like flood risk and management, and help deliver departmental objectives.  Santiago comments that “Regular training ensures we understand the technologies we are using and gives us added confidence in our work.”

Complex factors like extreme climatic change create new risks, in new locations, all the time.  The challenge for insurance companies is to thoroughly understand these risks and make well informed decisions about how best to manage exposure to current and emerging perils within a given geographic area.  When emergencies like floods, wildfires and explosions occur, insurers also need to be able to quickly ascertain which customers have been most affected, so that they can offer rapid support.

RSA was one of the first insurers to exploit the power of geographic information system (GIS) technology, using it initially to gain a more detailed understanding of flood risk.  Now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intact Financial Corporation, RSA has been extending and advancing its use of ArcGIS for more than 20 years.

At the heart of RSA’s business today is an enterprise GIS platform, built using Esri’s ArcGIS technology and maintained by Esri UK.  ArcGIS delivers instant access to the risk intelligence that RSA requires to understand which risks exist at a property and whether it has capacity to underwrite new business in this specific area.  “ArcGIS is right at the front end of what we do,” says Katie Ward, Head of GeoRisk at RSA.

The Esri GIS platform has been integrated with RSA’s core business systems for underwriting and pricing, so up to 2,000 employees in RSA’s underwriting and pricing teams regularly use GIS and mapping tools as a part of their daily jobs.  Considered to be a pivotal business tool, ArcGIS delivers geocoding and risk analysis services for everything from validating addresses to scoring perils and delivering customer quotes for new policies.

RSA also makes extensive use of ArcGIS Pro, through an Enterprise Licence Agreement with Esri UK.  The team of expert GIS users at RSA employs sophisticated spatial analysis techniques to create hazard models and reports that provide insights into new and changing risk profiles.  The use of GIS has replaced spreadsheets, enabling employees to examine trends and patterns visually.

Most recently, RSA has begun to make greater use of ArcGIS Online to create quick applications, on demand, that replace static maps and enable people to gain a deeper insight into a wide range of issues by interacting directly with the data.  For example, the GeoRisk team has created an ArcGIS app to show claims hot spots across the UK in relation to the locations of its loss adjusters.  Using this information, the business can make sure its loss adjusting staff are based in the right places to provide the best possible claims support for their customers.

Deeper understanding of risks
Through its use of ArcGIS, RSA has been able to take advantage of the growing availability of open data to derive a greater understanding of peril risk and thereby allow underwriters to make better business decisions.  Having a clear understanding of the business that is already covered allows underwriters to determine whether there is capacity to write more business, ensuring that RSA remains within its risk appetite.

Policies priced fairly based on actual risks
By using the platform, RSA can identify the exact property being insured, and the rate charged for a specific peril can more accurately reflect the risk that is being covered.  For instance, a person living on top of a hill would now pay a lower premium for flood cover than someone living closer to the river.  “Our use of ArcGIS and risk modelling helps us to understand peril more accurately, at specific locations, and then offer cover at a fair and competitive price,” Ward explains.

Fast, effective customer service
If a flood, wildfire or other unexpected incident occurs, RSA can use ArcGIS to immediately see which of its customers are affected.  “Following a recent explosion in Birmingham, we were able to quickly identify nearby customers and contact them to make sure they were alright,” Ward recalls.  “ArcGIS enables us to react quickly and proactively in emergency situations to help our customers, before they have even logged a claim.”

Well-informed business strategy
Following events such as a major flood, RSA’s GeoRisk team uses ArcGIS to prepare presentations for senior managers, analysing what occurred and the implications for the business.  These reports provide clarity in complex situations and are used to help inform changes in business strategy.  For instance, ArcGIS helps managers to understand if RSA is underwriting the right levels of risk in the right locations.

Efficient working across multiple countries
The recent migration to ArcGIS Pro, Esri’s latest desktop software, is saving time as the GIS team can now more easily automate processes, streamline data processing tasks and make them more repeatable.  In addition, the integration of ArcGIS with other systems saves time for RSA employees, as they no longer have to access risk maps separately, whether they are working in the UK, Ireland or Canada.  “ArcGIS is firmly embedded in everything we do,” Ward says.  “It enables us to work efficiently and gives everyone the same instant view of global risk, irrespective of where they are.”

Based in the north west of England, Ribble Rivers Trust aims to improve rivers across the Ribble River catchment area for both wildlife and people. It recognised the huge strain that physical inactivity places on the NHS and wanted to do more to encourage people to get involved in local environmental projects as a way to exercise, meet other people and alleviate conditions such as obesity and depression. However, the charity didn’t know which environmental improvement projects to focus on, in which locations, to have the greatest positive impact on the people who were most in need of help.

Initially, Ribble Rivers Trust used ArcGIS on the desktop to analyse open source public health and environment data for Lancashire. It identified key locations where people had health and wellbeing issues and where opportunities existed nearby to invest in environmental schemes that could positively impact these communities. “ArcGIS enables us to pull data and evidence together to target our efforts in those areas where they could provide the greatest benefits in a way that we just wouldn’t be able to do otherwise,” explains Ellie Brown, Strategic Evidence and GIS Manager at Ribble Rivers Trust.

When The Rivers Trust, the national umbrella organisation for river trusts in the UK, found out about the analysis work undertaken by Ribble Rivers Trust, it realised that the approach and resulting data could be useful beyond Lancashire. It therefore provided funding for Ribble Rivers Trust to extend its work to cover the whole of England. Ribble Rivers Trust published the results of this nationwide analysis on ArcGIS Online, creating a decision support tool in the form of an ArcGIS Story Map that is now freely available for anyone to use.

Since then, Ribble Rivers Trust has formed a partnership with nine other local organisations, including other environmental or public health organisations, local councils and landowners, and set up a project called Health and Environmental Action Lancashire (HEAL) to connect people with nature and improve the environment, specifically in areas where people have health disadvantages. “ArcGIS shows where local populations have real issues with health and wellbeing and inadequate access to green and blue spaces,” Brown says. “It has really added value to the HEAL Project, enabling us to prioritise and adapt our environmental projects to benefit both the environment and local people.”

Clear evidence to support funding applications
The ArcGIS decision support tool provides an indication of where health inequalities and environmental issues overlap, giving organisations the evidence they need to justify new projects. The tool was used in the HEAL Partnership’s successful bid for funding from the Green Recovery Challenge Fund, a government-led initiative that aims to support environmental renewal. This funding is now being used in multiple schemes, including a project at Pleck Meadows in Lancashire, where improvements to a wetlands environment are being implemented to simultaneously create habitats for wildlife, reduce flood risks and encourage local people to be more active outside.

Projects prioritised in areas of greatest need
Critically, the ArcGIS decision support tool enables organisations to use data to prioritise where projects are most needed and where they could have the biggest impact on communities with poor health. The tool has, for example, been used to pinpoint schools in urban areas with limited access to green and blue areas for recreation and high levels of childhood obesity. The HEAL Partnership is now running ‘Water and Wellness’ sessions at these schools and encouraging teachers to take pupils to local parks and rivers to learn. The pupils are gaining health benefits from being more active, while picking up litter on walks and planting trees to improve their local environment.

Effective collaboration with a wide range of partners
As the decision support tool is presented in an ArcGIS Story Map it is incredibly easy for people to explore the data, reveal patterns and find the evidence they need to inform their decisions. Organisations and community groups that do not use GIS can use the tool to view, understand and interrogate the same data as their partners. “Using an ArcGIS Online Story Map enables Ribble Rivers Trust to share data with partners who otherwise would have no way of accessing the data, and work collaboratively with a wide range of organisations,” Brown says. “Collectively we can achieve so much more than if we were working in isolation.”

Dual objectives achieved with each project
The ground-breaking thing about the ArcGIS decision support tool is how it is enabling Ribble Rivers Trust and its partners to achieve dual objectives with each project: improving the health and wellbeing of local people and regenerating the environment. For example, the HEAL Partnership has organised woodland walks, during which people not only exercise but also collect tree seeds which can be planted in tree nurseries. The ArcGIS decision support tool is used to find ancient woodland where seeds can be collected from trees with a local provenance, close to communities with poor health and wellbeing, with paths that are accessible to people with different levels of mobility.

Under the terms of the Fire and Rescue Services Act (2004), fire and rescue services throughout the UK must take reasonable measures to ensure that an adequate supply of water will be available for use in the event of fire. In practice, this means that fire and rescue services must routinely inspect fire hydrants to check that they are operating correctly and ensure that sufficient additional hydrants are installed where new properties are being developed.

This is an enormous logistical challenge.

In Norfolk alone there are over 23,000 fire hydrants, a figure that is increasing by up to 500 a year due to new housing developments. For many years, Norfolk Fire & Rescue Service managed its hydrant inspections and planning applications for new hydrants using a hybrid system, comprising a database and a front-end mapping interface, with the two parts maintained by separate organisations. The solution was, however, unstable and unreliable, leading to data inaccuracies and inefficient ways of working.

Norfolk Fire & Rescue service initially evaluated three off-the-shelf hydrant management systems, but none of them offered all the functionality that it needed. The organisation therefore approached Esri UK and asked the Professional Services team to work with it to create a comprehensive solution for inspecting existing hydrants, overseeing new schemes where additional hydrants need to be installed and managing the workload for mobile teams.

The resulting solution was configured quickly and collaboratively. “My experience of working with Esri UK was very good,” says Tim Allison, Water Resources and Planning Manager at Norfolk Fire & Rescue Service. “Once the project scope was agreed, the solution was delivered by Esri UK’s Professional Services team in just 14 weeks.”

Now, technicians on the road receive a map-based work schedule from ArcGIS Workforce and then go to ArcGIS Field Maps to enter data on the condition of each hydrant inspected. All the data collected in the field, and the progress of inspections, is immediately visible back in the office on ArcGIS Online, enabling the central team to monitor workloads and schedules.

The water resources team then uses ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Pro on desktops to add and remove hydrants, create hydrant schemes for new housing developments and send details of defective hydrants to the relevant water authority so that repairs can be initiated. ArcGIS Online provides a single conduit to all hydrant data, so up-to-date plans for new schemes and other documents can be accessed simply by clicking on the map.

Each night, up-to-date hydrant data is sent automatically from ArcGIS Online to the mobile data terminals (MDTs) in fire engines, enabling crews to see instantly which hydrants are available. On a weekly basis, data from ArcGIS Online is also fed directly into the Norfolk Mapping Browser, used by staff at Norfolk County Council.

25% - 50% reduction in administrative time
ArcGIS has led to significant time savings in the administration of hydrant inspections and hydrant planning in Norfolk. Tim Allison estimates that the water resources team spends 50% less time than before hunting for information, such as planning applications. He and his colleagues also spend as much as 25% less time allocating jobs to technicians and managing work schedules. “We are massively more efficient now,” he says. “ArcGIS is enabling us to manage a growing number of hydrants with the same number of people.”

Accurate data on hydrants available for firefighting
Norfolk Fire & Rescue Service is now confident in the accuracy of the hydrant information that is being sent to fire crews. In the future, it will be able to feed even more information from ArcGIS Online to fire appliances, when the MDT software has the capability to receive this enhanced information. “Fire crews on a shout can trust the information they see and quickly find the hydrants that are nearest and useable,” Tim Allison says. “This helps to save valuable minutes and better prepare fire crews to fight fires and save lives.”

Faster responses to hydrant issues
Using ArcGIS, Norfolk Fire & Rescue Service can now respond faster to issues reported by the public, such as leaks from hydrants. The water services team can simply look at ArcGIS Online to find the nearest technician and send an urgent job to him via ArcGIS Workforce, diverting him to this location. He can then upload photos and details of the damage, which can be forwarded to the water authority. “We can respond in a joined up way, send accurate information to the water authority and get back to the customer in a couple of hours,” Tim Allison says.

Clear visibility of management information
The water services team now has better oversight of the end-to-end process of creating, inspecting and maintaining hydrants in accordance with its statutory duties. It also has more information than ever before, as it can record information on additional water sources like lakes and hydrants on private land. ArcGIS Dashboards show precisely how many hydrants have been inspected, how many are awaiting repair and even how long each one takes to maintain, and all this management information is being used to continue to improve services for the future.

For more than 25 years, Wicklow County Council has used Esri’s ArcGIS geographic information system (GIS) solutions in areas ranging from local development planning to highways maintenance.  Throughout this time, it has continued to evolve its use of GIS and embrace new technologies to improve its delivery of public services.

When the council introduced ArcGIS field apps to capture data remotely, it began working with geospatial data in the cloud more extensively than before.  Soon, as much as 20% of the council’s GIS data was being stored in the cloud, in ArcGIS Online.  Paddy O’Flaherty, GIS Officer at Wicklow County Council, says, “We saw the benefits that we were getting from working in the cloud, and it made us think, why don’t we just move everything to the cloud?”

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Wicklow County Council made the decision to migrate the remaining 80% of its geospatial data and GIS services to ArcGIS Online, which is hosted and maintained by Esri Ireland.  Then, within weeks, COVID-19 emerged, and the unprecedented demands of this pandemic both endorsed the council’s new cloud strategy and accelerated the pace of the migration.  “When COVID happened, we learned, pretty quickly, that having essential data saved on ArcGIS Online, where it could be easily accessed, was a huge benefit,” O’Flaherty says.

Any data required to support the council’s critical response to the pandemic was migrated to ArcGIS Online first.  This included data about first responders and other organisations working to support people during lockdowns.  In the second phase, the council focused on data commonly accessed and interrogated by citizens, such as the County Development Plan, to improve the quality of its service to the public.  At this point in time, the council also shared additional data sets via its ArcGIS Online Open Data Portal.

The migration continued throughout the pandemic and, in the third phase, data and GIS services used by staff were moved to ArcGIS Online.  “Not only did we migrate data to ArcGIS Online; we also did a thorough data quality review, to make sure that the data we were sharing online was the primary and most accurate data set available,” O’Flaherty explains.

In the final phase, Wicklow County Council migrated ‘live’ data sets that are edited and updated daily by different departments, such as data on vacant development sites.  The whole migration was completed in around eighteen months and carried out gradually alongside other GIS projects, with no additional resources or budget, at a pace that didn’t overwhelm the GIS team.

A six-fold increase in performance

The migration to ArcGIS Online led to an immediate improvement in GIS performance for both council employees and members of the public who use the council’s web-based GIS apps.  “Users can select a thousand features, and ArcGIS Online will still return the results straight away,” O’Flaherty says.  “Planning queries load in five seconds now rather than thirty or more seconds previously.  ArcGIS Online is also very reliable and has no problems at all handling peaks in traffic.”

Easier management of 450 data sets

O’Flaherty and his colleagues are now saving a significant amount of time, as they don’t need to make software updates or upgrade servers with additional RAM.  ArcGIS Online also simplifies data management tasks, making it simpler for the council to keep its 450 data sets current.  “Managing data and maintaining our GIS platform is so much easier than before,” O’Flaherty discloses.  “Things that were a chore can now be done with the click of button.”

Time freed up to deliver new public services

Without the time-consuming burden of server management, the GIS team at Wicklow County Council has been able to create new web apps and GIS services in ArcGIS Online.  Furthermore, as all the data is available in one place, the team can create these apps much more quickly.  Offering an example, O’Flaherty says, “We built a new Residential Zoned Land Tax app in just half a day.  ArcGIS Online has freed up my time to develop more GIS services to improve our delivery of public services.”

Faster publication of up-to-date information

Wicklow County Council can now make up-to-date data available to the public much more quickly than before.  Planning applications data, for instance, is now updated daily as opposed to fortnightly and receives thousands of views per day.  In addition, Wicklow County Council can publish its County Development Plan immediately, as soon as it is formally adopted, as all the data is already online.  In the past, at least a month of post processing would have been needed before the plan could be published.

Business continuity during COVID-19 pandemic

Last, but certainly not least, O’Flaherty acknowledges the key role that the migration to ArcGIS Online played in ensuring business continuity for the council during the two year period of the pandemic when many staff worked from home.  “GIS was one of the IT services that was uninterrupted during COVID,” O’Flaherty reports.  “When colleagues needed information, we were able to make it available online straight away to help alleviate the challenges of the pandemic.”

Ringway is responsible for looking after over 50,000 kilometres of roads in the UK.  Working on behalf of local and strategic highway authorities, including National Highways and Transport for London, it undertakes a range of specialist highway maintenance services ranging from clearing gullies and filling potholes to managing vital highways infrastructure and assets.

The company wanted to improve the efficiency and sustainability of its services, by ensuring that routine maintenance tasks like gully clearance were carried out at the right frequency, in the right places.  However, the data that it was collecting wasn’t accurately geo-referenced, so it could not be easily analysed, nor used to inform a more intelligence-led approach to service planning.

Ringway used Esri’s ArcGIS suite of tools to build a series of apps, which were initially deployed in Hertfordshire and have since been rolled out to other parts of the country.  All the ArcGIS solutions were developed through a collaborative internal development process, involving GIS professionals from Ringway Hertfordshire, the Ringway ICT department, operational teams from other Ringway divisions and clients.

Field-based teams in nine Ringway divisions currently use ArcGIS Field Maps to collect data on their tablets about cyclical services such as gully clearance, grass cutting and bin emptying.  With just a few clicks, employees can enter data while doing their jobs, so no additional time or cost is associated with data collection.  In the case of gully clearance, crews record whether each gully is 25%, 50%, 75% or more full, and this information is visible instantly on a centralised dashboard, hosted on ArcGIS Enterprise.  Managers can then monitor the progress of gully clearance activities and ensure that client-specific key performance indicators (KPIs) are being met.

Using ArcGIS Pro, Ringway then analyses the geo-referenced data collected and other external data, to gain insight into where and when services are most needed.  Returning to the example of gully clearance, Ringway analyses gully data alongside data on flood zones and public reports of floods.  If a gully is typically full of silt and in a flood plain, it is moved to a six-month cleaning regime.  If it is historically always nearly empty and no issues have been reported, it is moved to a two-year cycle.  In this way, Ringway can ensure time and money isn’t wasted cleaning gullies at a frequency that is unwarranted, while providing regular cleaning for gullies that need it and building resilience into the asset management regime so that severe weather events and hotpots are proactively managed to benefit residents.

Ringway has also created a Virtual Operations Hub based on ArcGIS Online that brings data from multiple sources together in one place, in an easy-to-view format, for the first time.  Shared with clients, the fully interactive, map-based solution gives everyone the same accurate view of highways assets, planned and historic works and relevant external data.

£250,000 freed up for reinvestment
By conducting geospatial analysis with ArcGIS, Ringway has identified cost efficiencies of hundreds of thousands of pounds that its clients across the UK can gain by adopting a more intelligence-led approach to planning cyclical maintenance services.  In Hertfordshire, where Ringway cleans over 100,000 gullies a year, the team has been able to move 19,000 assets from an 18-month to a 24-month gully emptying cycle.  Combined with the operational efficiency highlighted below, this has allowed £250,000 of budget allocated to gully clearing to be released to fund other council priorities, in this county alone.

Improved operational efficiency in the field
As ArcGIS Field Maps is easier to use than Ringway’s previous mobile data capture solution, the time required to collect data in the field has halved.  Consequently, field-based teams can now complete more tasks in a working day.  Rob Payne, Service Development and Communications Manager for Ringway Hertfordshire, has observed that the six gully clearing crews working in Hertfordshire each clear two extra gullies per working day, as a result of using ArcGIS Field Maps.  “We can clear around 1,320 more gullies in Hertfordshire, each year, in the same time, with the same resources,” he estimates.

Informed, collaborative decision making
The development of the Virtual Operations Hub has enabled Ringway and its clients to collaborate more effectively and make more informed decisions.  With visibility of the same shared data, Ringway and council employees can see opportunities to coordinate activities and deliver programmes efficiently.  They can, for example, deliver new road works in tandem, which is more cost effective for the client and also more convenient for road users.  “ArcGIS Online gives us and our clients added intelligence so we can all plan our activities in a smarter, location-based way to keep the road network free of disruption,” Payne says.

Live information for intelligent asset management
Using ArcGIS Dashboards, managers at Ringway can see progress against targets, in real time, and move crews around to help achieve deadlines.  They can see how many potholes are awaiting filling and where road surfaces are degrading quickest and use this live information to make more intelligent decisions about how best to manage assets on behalf of clients.  “Our ArcGIS Dashboards give managers live information so they can keep a finger on the pulse of our services,” Payne explains.  “I can now answer people with clarity and surety.”

Oxfordshire County Council manages the delivery of services for vulnerable citizens across a semi-rural, semi-urban area of over 1,000 square miles.  Every year, it helps more than 6,200 people to live safely in their own homes, including those with physical and mental disabilities, elderly people who need long-term or end-of-life care and young adults with learning disabilities who want to live independently.

Oxfordshire County Council began using Esri’s ArcGIS suite in 2017 and now has over thirty web-based and mobile ArcGIS apps that are used across multiple departments.  In recent years, the council has focused in particular on using pre-configured app templates within ArcGIS Enterprise to create solutions for adult social care services.

One key solution is an app for adult care sourcing that enables the council’s Live and Age Well team to more easily see the location of someone who needs a new care package; find other people nearby who are already receiving care; and identify the care providers that are already operating in this area that might have capacity to take on a new client in the same locality.  The solution is highly secure and restricted to a small group of approved users to ensure compliance with General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Another ArcGIS app helps the council to find accommodation for young adults with learning disabilities who want to live independently.  The council has 141 premises around the county specifically designated for people with learning disabilities, each with 1 to 5 rooms.  One version of the learning disability supported living app allows designated users to find a suitable property and access details about the applicable housing association, while a second version of the app is editable, allowing the commissioning team to show when rooms are available or taken.

Oxfordshire County Council has created a further ArcGIS app to help managers in the adult social worker team schedule repeat visits to clients within 12 months, in line with the council’s performance targets.  Each client is colour-coded on an ArcGIS map, depending on the revisit due date, so managers can easily see clusters of ‘red’ revisits that need to take place quickly and nearby ‘orange’ revisits, that are not urgent, but are becoming due.  Managers can then group together ‘red’ and ‘orange’ appointments in the same locality and schedule them for the same date to minimise travel time.

In another successful initiative, the council has used ArcGIS Survey123 to create a questionnaire used by council employees and fire service professionals to capture information from vulnerable people in up to 3,800 home visits per year.  The app prompts them to discuss smoking, alcohol consumption and issues like clutter in corridors, all of which can be fire risks, and make referrals if appropriate.  A second ArcGIS Survey123 form allows citizens to provide information on their gender and situation, anonymously, which the council can then use to evidence equality and diversity.

Faster provisioning of appropriate care
ArcGIS enables Oxfordshire County Council to quickly see which providers are nearest to a new client and able to deliver the right services as soon as possible at the best contractual terms for the council.  “There are over fifty care providers operating in the county,” explains Anne Kearsley, GIS Solutions Manager at Oxfordshire County Council.   “Council staff can now have more informed conversations with precisely those care providers that are operating in the right locations and that are best placed to quickly take on a new client in the same area.”

More efficient delivery of care in the community
By using ArcGIS to schedule repeat visits to clients’ homes by location, Oxfordshire County Council can ensure that its adult care social workers waste less time travelling around the county and instead spend more time with clients, in their homes.  Such has been the success of this particular app that the council is currently planning to build another similar one to show the locations where Ukrainian refugees are living and help it improve the efficiency of its visits to displaced families and their hosts.

Reduced costs and carbon footprint
As the council can now optimise social worker journeys and minimise travel time using ArcGIS, it has been able to reduce expenditure on fuel – a cost saving that is particularly important now, following significant increases in fuel costs.  By minimising mileage, the ArcGIS app also reduces the environmental impacts of delivering care in the community.  “Our ArcGIS app for scheduling social worker revisits recently received an internal Innovation Award for minimising the council’s carbon impact,” Kearsley says.

Safe, independent living at home
All of the apps created using out-of-the-box ArcGIS functionality are helping the council to support people in their own homes.  The living independently app, for example, makes it easier for the council to find appropriate accommodation for young adults with disabilities, while the Survey123 app helps to reduce fire risks in the homes of elderly people.  “Oxfordshire County Council aspires to enable people to live safely and independently in their own homes for as long as possible,” Kearsley says.  “ArcGIS helps us to do this.”

"We needed the right software to manage an increasingly complex and varied use of drones and meet the needs of multiple teams, from logistics to site managers to engineers," explained Dan Fawcett, Innovation Director at Balfour Beatty VINCI. "New digitised workflows are rapidly replacing traditional, physical working practices and introducing new levels of efficiency, accuracy and safety. On major projects such as HS2, the ROI achieved is significant."

Balfour Beatty VINCI has rolled out Esri’s Site Scan for ArcGIS drone flight management and image processing software, to support its drone deployment strategy.

The new cloud-based software is being used to carry out drone site surveys, manage aggregate stockpiles and monitor progress of construction. Various 2D and 3D outputs are being generated for sharing with multiple stakeholders, including high-definition imagery and 3D terrain models.

Site Scan for ArcGIS offers flight planning, hardware management, scalable image processing and unlimited data storage, plus seamless integration with BBV's Esri enterprise GIS system.

More efficient surveys
Faster and more efficient drone surveys are already saving around £20,000 a year on monthly construction progress surveys, on a single site, instead of using physical surveys and the subsequent updating of CAD models. BBV estimates this could save around £1.6m if the same workflow was applied across 80 sites in the first year.

Safer stockpile monitoring
Another benefit has been the removal of 800 'working at risk' days and a cost saving of £30,000 per year from monitoring aggregate stockpiles, using a single drone operator to carry out 3D volumetric measurements in 20 minutes. Previously, contractors would take a full day to physically measure stockpiles and calculate transport requirements, often working in steep and difficult environments.

Compliance management
Other applications of the new software include helping to show compliance with design tolerances in built structures against BIM and CAD models, speeding-up design cycles, particularly in earthworks and excavations design and monitoring the installation of utilities.