The city of Missouri City has one of the premier GIS's in southeast Texas. Missouri City has successfully implemented a GIS that is utilized with Digital Orthophotography throughout the City in many diverse ways. The City not only utilizes the GIS for mapping and analysis, but for presentations, court cases, planning, creation of the City Map Book, and more. In addition, Missouri City is working with other local governments to share data and eliminate governmental duplication of efforts.
Missouri City implemented its Geographic Information System (GIS) in 1994. The system was started with Esri's ArcCAD and ArcView software. Later in that year it was determined that ArcCAD was not robust enough to manage the City's base map, associated data, and about a half of dozen other coverages, thus ArcCAD was upgraded to a UNIX version of ArcInfo on an IBM Workstation.
Today, six years later, the City of Missouri City uses ArcInfo 8.0.2 on a Windows NT Personal Computer that is a fraction of the cost and much more powerful then the UNIX workstation utilized in 1994. Employees utilize ArcView 3.2 on personal computers located throughout the city offices to view, query, and display data. In addition, they edit and create new data from existing coverages. The number one use of ArcView though is the creation of custom maps. Maps are utilized within the City on a daily basis to describe projects, provide detailed information to citizens, aid in planning and much more.
Missouri City has reaped many benefits by implementing a GIS. All the GIS files are located on one server, providing a central area for data storage and eliminating duplicate map sets, data, file space, and efforts. Users have access to the most current data at all times. Missouri City's GIS has created data conscience users and improved the quality of their data input and output.
Users have the flexibility to choose the data they prefer to view, analyze or present. They are able to easily analyze graphic (spatial) and non-graphic data (attributes) simultaneously, providing them the ability to tap the true potential of databases for better decision-making. Users understand data when it is seen.
The GIS has improved the Missouri City's inventory/facility management programs. GIS is utilized with the City's Pavement Management/Maintenance Program (PMMP), providing the Public Works Department the ability to visually manage and maintain safe street conditions within the City from the office. Inventory and data on regulatory street signs is managed with GIS, as is the City's GPS and benchmark locations.
GIS allows for the interchange of data electronically through the Internet. Missouri City utilizes the Internet to exchange data with State, local and private agencies on a regular basis. Maps and data are easily transmitted and received, and can be converted between different formats and systems.
Using ArcView 3.2, employees quickly learn how to utilize the GIS to map out locations for address queries, mailing list generation, map creation/customization, planning and design, customer service response and Emergency response planning.
All City employees and departments utilize and create GIS maps. Many of these maps are “adopted” by the City Council as official documents. Some of the adopted maps are the Major Thoroughfare Plan, Drug Free Zone Map, Multi-way Stop Sign Location Map, Trail Plan, Park Master Plan, and Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone Map.
City staff often utilizes other GIS created maps. Examples are, the Police Beat Map, Fire District Map, Park Location Map, Subdivision Map, Major Activity Location Map, Zoning Map, Municipal Utility District Map, GPS Monument Location Map, City Council/County Precinct Map and others.
The GIS automates map building. The Residential Subdivision Map was generated and created “automatically” with the GIS by extracting subdivision numbers from within Missouri City's property tax database attached to the parcel coverage. Linking an outside database to the parcel coverage database aided in creating the 1998 Building Permits Map. The Building Permits Map indicates sites where building permits were issued for that year.
Zoning changes occur frequently. The GIS is updated immediately after changes are made by City Council, providing the most up to date information for users. Color classification of zones is a major improvement over the “old” black line maps.
The Drug Free Zones Map was created to aide police in fighting the war on drugs. The idea for the Drug Free Zones Map came from another city that created a similar map “manually”. It took several employees several days to create their map. Utilizing the GIS, Missouri City's map was created in less then one day, utilizing the time of only one employee.
Digital Orthophotography is a major part of Missouri City's GIS. It has been utilized exclusively to improve base map accuracy. In addition it has been used to create additional themes/coverages. Coverages created from Digital Orthophotography include the edge of pavement, building footprint, sidewalk, driveway, parking, hydrography, street centerline, land use, and railroad coverages.
Digital Orthophotography is utilized by the city for economic development, presentations, project layouts, preliminary planning and design, and on screen “field” measuring and “red lining”. Digital orthophotography has even been successfully utilized in City court cases and condemnation hearings.
Digital orthophotography is sometimes utilized in place of drawings. Projects overlaid on top of digital orthophotography provide the ability for workers to “look and see” what is there. With digital Orthophotography “a view is worth a 1000 words”.
Missouri City's digital orthophotography consists of one-foot pixels and provides ± 5-foot accuracy.
Missouri City is located in one of the fastest growing areas in the United States. With this rapid growth it is impossible for the police and fire departments to be familiar with locations of many of the new streets. To solve this problem the City's “Map Book” was created. The map book is automated in ArcInfo and is driven by graphic user interfaces (GUI) utilizing GIS coverages. The map book program is set up to print individual pages, updated street indexes, or entire books. Selected features from various coverages can be chosen to create custom map books. In addition, attribute data can be utilized to label the features. Custom map books are created for the street department with regulatory signs and their types. Map books for the police and fire department have address numbers on each parcel and show fire hydrant locations.
The City's map book provides access to the newest street locations in an easy to use format. In addition the map book replaces commercial map books which are out of date, hard to read, and contain errors.
The map book has a grid index that represents the pages/grid of the map book. This grid is used as a quick reference for locations and is generated by GUI in ArcInfo. Along with the grid is the street index, which is automated in ArcInfo. The street index provides a street listing in alphabetical order with address ranges and corresponding map grid number.
Missouri City utilizes GPS for field data collection. With vender provided software, collected data is easily converted to GIS formats.
A “champion” on staff is key to a successful GIS implementation. This person continuously promotes GIS to management and staff. The champion acquires upper management's support and educates them on the benefits of a GIS. The champion will have a written implementation plan in place and continually update and utilize it as a tool to benchmark ongoing progress. In addition, everyone must be aware that a GIS is an ongoing expenditure.
Other keys to a successful implementation are to provide adequate staffing and continually educate and train staff. In house responsibilities versus utilizing a contractor should be identified. Only use experienced and qualified contractors. Develop inter-jurisdictional arrangements. Data sources and their costs should be researched and identified prior to acquisition. Require data to be submitted in digital format.
Digital orthophotography should be acquired prior to the base map and utilized to rectify the base map. Rubber sheeting should be avoided if possible. Projects should be “pilot tested” to facilitate estimating project time and costs, and insuring the desired results are achieved. Prepare realistic specifications and time frames within resources.
Provide a useable product as quickly as possible. Document all savings and quality improvements. Organize, document and maintain a data dictionary (meta data) on databases. Provide programming shortcuts and GUI's for the most commonly used processes that will make it effortless for the end user to utilize the GIS.
As part of Missouri City's implementation plan, future goals are set. Future goals include further coordinating the City's GIS countywide with other local agencies. This will be accomplished by working together, sharing data and eliminating duplication of effort within each agency. Within the City the goal is to create additional GUI's and automated scripts for frequently used routines and to simplify access to data. Also, the City would like to provide public access to the GIS, either via the Internet or Kiosks.