Over the last decade, the City of Surrey embarked on building an enterprise GIS for use by the engineering, parks, and planning departments, totalling over 90 ArcGIS users. With over 270 data layers, the enterprise GIS provides broad access to spatial information through the City of Surrey's Mapping Online System (COSMOS) website. The City's GIS Section coordinates with other City departments to support and maintain COSMOS. With a comprehensive data inventory and robust toolset, COSMOS is the gateway to spatial information accessed by City staff and the public.

"The City's COSMOS website is a good example of how GIS technology can increase a City's level of service to its residents and business community," said Mr. Miller. "It has empowered users throughout the organization and community by broadening the user base and providing public access to the City's spatial information that was previously only accessible by coming to City Hall."

The City's GIS Section developed an extension to ArcGIS that has enabled CAD technicians to migrate to a GIS environment for maintaining cadastre and infrastructure data. The extension includes custom data entry forms, tools, and routines. In the past the City captured spatial data using both CAD and GIS tools that required CAD data to be converted into the GIS environment. "GIS eliminates the need for CAD tools and has resulted in a threefold increase in our productivity in data input, therefore radically decreasing distribution time to city staff and the public," said Sean Simpson, GIS Manager, City of Surrey. "The City has experienced tremendous growth that has created additional requests for information and with GIS we have been able to focus on being more productive with technology rather than hiring additional staff."

The City is also using mobile GIS to assist with data maintenance by collecting data in the field. City staff are now able to take enterprise data to the field using ArcPad and capture new data for street lights, traffic signal poles, and catch basin cleaning. With the success achieved to date, the City plans to roll out more mobile applications.

"Working in cooperation with the GIS section to implement mobile laptops with GIS based applications, we have transformed our asset management and maintenance program," said Jamie Boan, Transportation Manager, City of Surrey. "This has resulted in improved efficiency and confidence in the information provided by staff."

The City's soil conservation by-law office has recently completed a successful pilot project that uses a portable version of the City's GIS with ArcReader and ArcGIS Publisher to monitor sites where illegal soil dumping is occurring in the City. The system provides real-time locating of non-conforming sites in the field, giving officers sufficient information to issue stop work orders and fines as infractions are observed.

The City's newly implemented Cityworks asset management system leverages the City's existing investment in GIS. The City provides waste and recycling collection services to over 105,000 households on a weekly basis. Given the large customer base and a large geographic service area, ensuring consistency in service delivery can be a challenge. In an effort to improve efficiencies, the City recently implemented a service request system that is integrated with the City's GIS. The system allows City staff to identify customer service requests by problem/request type and by location. The ability to map service requests has vastly improved the process of analysing and pinpointing problem service routes, delivery requests, and customer trends.

"With information in a GIS we can access the data we need within minutes, versus the former arduous time consuming processes which required manual mapping of service request data," said Rob Costanzo, Deputy Manager, Operations, City of Surrey. "The positive results include a significant savings in resource time and a much faster turn-around in resolving service related issues."

About ESRI Canada:
Established in 1984, ESRI Canada is a Canadian owned company specializing in geographic information systems (GIS) solutions. We distribute the world's leading GIS software solutions from ESRI Inc., Miner and Miner, and Azteca. In order to provide organizations with complete industry-specific solutions we have established an extensive business partner program that includes more than 125 Canadian organizations. ESRI Canada also provides professional services including consulting, training, technical support, and enterprise GIS implementation. We are leaders in providing world-class enterprise GIS solutions for many industries including local government, utilities, public safety and defence, business demographics, education, natural resources, and transportation. ESRI Canada has thirteen regional offices across the country, with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. For more information, please visit http://www.esricanada.com/ or call 1-800-447-9778.

Media Contacts:
Matt Down
GIS Marketing Specialist
ESRI Canada
T: 416-441-6035 x6308
E: modwn@esricanada.com
W:http:/www.esricanada.com