MAAGAN - GEOGRAPHICAL PORTS SYSTEM

Author: Ofer Nadivi
Organization: Atlas Geomatics

11 Gush Ezion St.
Givat-Shmuel, 54030
ISRAEL

Phone: 972-3-5312340
Fax: 972-3-5312348
ofern@malam.com

In recent years the Israeli Port and Railway Authority (PRA) has been developing new ports and improving the existing ports' management and operation. The PRA's challenge to maintain its services and to plan and develop new projects involves the implemention of an organizational GIS through an outsourcing project.

The development of the GIS is just one stage in a more comprehensive outsourcing project carried out by Atlas Geomatics, which involves the following:
- Analyzing the PRA's needs for a GIS from different aspects--cadastral and land records, facility management, real estate, and the more specific ports needs such as operational data (terminals, storage areas, etc.)
- Creating a spatial database and defining the standards for transferring data between external planners and contractors and the PRA's GIS
- Integrating existing data into the spatial database
- Developing an application using Esri's most recent technologies--SDE, MapObjects, ArcView GIS, ArcInfo--and integrating it with Oracle, AutoCAD, and other applications
- Guiding the users as to how to best utilize the GIS and extract information from the raw data
- Taking full responsibility for the next five years for managing and maintaining the database and the GIS

The database in the PRA's GIS is decentralized, with WAN connections between four different sites--Israel's three ports and the main office.

One major characteristic property of the PRA's GIS is that it integrates different sources of data--CAD drawings, GIS, and other documents and pictures of different formats.

The end user can now easily reach and retrieve data and documents that were once scattered in different departments. The GIS also gives the end users data querying possibilities that were not available before.

This presentation describes the development of Israel PRA's GIS and focuses on the way the GIS is assimilated in the organization.

Atlas Geomatics is a division of one of Israel's major software houses--Malam Systems Ltd. Atlas Geomatics provides the entire life cycle of a geographic information system, starting from analysis of requirements, system design, and data conversion, through development of a GIS and assisting the customers in assimilating the system.