Geospatial International is recognised as an industry leader in the provision of quality spatial information and e-business consulting services. Some areas where the company is currently or has recently been active include the following:
National Address Register Phase 2 Feasibility Study
The National Address Register (NAR) project was a cross-government initiative to develop a central register of New Zealand location information. The project aimed to eliminate duplication and inconsistencies in the way location information is gathered and managed.
Business, central and local government rely on accurate address information to carry out functions as varied as the delivery of goods and services, dispatch of emergency services, verifying enrolments on New Zealand’s electoral rolls, compiling national demographics and statistics and guiding the implementation of government policy, interactions and support.
While addresses are designated by territorial authorities, they are subject to colloquial use and personal interpretation. This in turn can lead to problems for utilities attempting to supply services, emergency service responses, and delivery of surface mail and freight.
A National Address Register would create a national source of addresses each linked to a single geographic position known as a geocode - a set of geographic coordinates that define a location or features associated with an address. Once geocoded, the address becomes the foundation for a new scope of activities. For example, it can be displayed on a map thereby making the geographic relationships between addresses immediately visible, or allowing an emergency services helicopter to navigate to the address location using its global positioning system (GPS).
Once established the National Address Register would provide for; increases in efficiency, increases in accuracy, advances in support for remote transactions in an e-government environment, improvement in policy and strategy development and the measurement of impact of policy and strategy implementation.
The feasibility study undertaken by Geospatial International identified that the National Address Register could be best established within a business model that exploited a commercial arrangement that maximised the reuse of existing data and capability currently available in the marketplace and was funded on a basis that recognised agency need for accurate addressing.
In fulfilling its statuary responsibilities the Department of Conservation (DOC) assumes the role of New Zealand’s largest land manager, managing about one third of New Zealand’s land area and increasing portions of the surrounding marine environment.
The management of that land involves a very complex and interdisciplinary process that includes a mix of technical, natural, and social sciences and encompasses all those activities associated with managing and administering of land as an asset of the Crown and a resource that belongs to all New Zealanders.
The land administration role assigned to DOC involves a complex set of tasks as it is derived from authorities or responsibilities conferred by 16 acts of Parliament and 14 conventions and international agreements.
Geospatial International undertook an analysis that enabled the department have a clear understanding of what land and marine information it needed at national and local levels, provided an assessment of the current state of and issues in its land and marine area information management and presented options and recommendations for addressing identified issues in a timely and cost effective manner, building on the existing systems, standards and processes and sitting within the context of the department’s overall information and technology directions.
The Local Government Association of Northern Territory engaged Geospatial International to establish a location intelligence strategy for the six municipal councils of the Northern Territory.
The strategy introduced a collaborative environment that reduced costs associated with the provision and operation of the necessary software as well as maintenance of and access to data. A primary saving came from the establishment of a shared services facility. A further outcome was that not only could councils lower internal resources required to manage and maintain spatially referenced information, but also many could fund the shared services through operational, rather than capital budgets.
In general the benefits of the shared services location intelligence application environment were:
The ability of municipal councils to access and share information more quickly and efficiently is promoting better decision making and thus, better public service.
The New Zealand Government’s proposed Emergency Services and Government Administrative (ESA) Data Improvement Programme seeks to define a road centre-line geospatial referenced data specification that will permit data and application integration and interoperability between Government agencies, and between Government agencies and local government. Within the transport sector this has the potential to deliver improved outcomes to the citizens of New Zealand in relation to matters such as:
Transit New Zealand has recently completed the development of a road centre-line data set that is consistent with the ESA standard. This data set is for the State highway network that is 12% of the roading network. Territorial Local Authorities (TLAs), who manage 88% of the roading network, have adopted asset management techniques that use location referencing techniques that, while in most cases are geospatially referenced do not form a consistent national geospatial data infrastructure. In some cases these asset management systems or a supporting geographic information system (GIS) manage geospatial road centre line data, but it is not known to which standard, nor to what level of consistency, this is data is captured or maintained.
The Ministry of Transport, engaged Geospatial International to carry out a fiscal and economic cost/benefit analysis of developing a national geospatial data infrastructure defining the road centre-line for the public roading network.
Geospatial International has undertaken multiple consultancy assignments for Land Information New Zealand (LINZ). These include the development of a long term strategy for the delivery of topographic information, the definition of an infrastructure to support New Zealand’s national and international hydrographic obligations and the establishment of the Emergency Services and Government Administrative (ESA) Data programme. Geospatial International has also provided input to the establishment of a geospatial data infrastructure for New Zealand and the establishment of a national Geospatial Strategy.
National Topographic Information Strategy
LINZ identified a need to develop a strategy for the delivery of topographic information. This strategy was developed in the broader context of LINZ’s mandate to provide topographic information primarily for emergency services, defence and constitutional purposes. While paper maps are the traditional means of delivering that information, the modern and future environments suggest that more flexible on-line solutions are required to meet market needs. A long term strategy was developed that defined LINZ’s future roles in these areas and enabled a transition from its current position.
Geospatial International developed a strategy that:
A key deliverable from the Long term Strategy for Topographic Information Online was a high level timeframe for moving LINZ towards the agreed role in delivering topographic information and future initiatives.
Emergency Services and Government Administrative (ESA) Data Improvement Programme
Emergency Services and other government agencies that require addresses, road centrelines and other named locations to fulfil their business requirements have identified that the data currently available to them does not fully meet their needs and does not facilitate interoperability between agencies where required.
The ESA Data Improvement Programme Steering Committee on behalf of the Officials’ Committee on Geospatial Information has determined that the Crown should undertake an intervention with the intention to:
- road name and location
- address number and location
- place name and location
Geospatial International was engaged to undertake this consultancy for Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), who in collaboration with a number of other government agencies involved in the ESA Data Improvement Programme wished to:
The findings of the consultancy have formed the basis for a submission to Government on inter-agency arrangements required to improve the management and maintenance of the geospatial data needed to support emergency services responses and a wide range of general government administrative functions.
Geospatial International recently successfully completed a consultancy for the South Australian Government Department, Primary Industries and Resources SA (PIRSA) to determine the organisational and technical infrastructure necessary to support the effective introduction and management of spatial information within PIRSA business activities.
Departmental operating groups included in the consultancy were:
A deliverable of the consultancy was a framework that elevated spatial technologies from being a "back room" technology to being a key support to the operation of PIRSA in the Information Economy environment. The framework included governance and operational components that represent the leading edge of international best practice. These components were developed following a review of international practice undertaken by Geospatial International for the PIRSA consultancy project and as part of an infrastructure development project for the South Australian Government known as the Spatial Information Integration Services project.
Geospatial International worked with PIRSA management to oversee the implementation of the recommendations of the organisational and technical infrastructure consultancy report. Some the tasks undertaken have been:
Spatial Australia received an Information Technology On-Line (ITOL) grant from the Federal Government to augment the Spatial Australia web site and thereby enhance the export competitiveness of spatial industry organisations through the use of the web-based business-to-business e-collaboration mechanisms.
Geospatial International Pty Ltd was chosen to undertake the redevelopment of the Spatial Australia Web Site to provide the e-collaboration functionality sought.
The system sought by Spatial Australia was required to:
Geospatial International has provided National Parks & Wildlife South Australia (NPWSA) with data administration, system development services for the Protected Areas Management System (PAMS) for over five years.
PAMS combines spatial and textual information about the natural and cultural resources of protected areas and their management to help rangers and managers make informed decisions about protected area management.
In April 1997 PAMS received a silver award at the Government Technology Productivity Awards.
NPWSA had identified a requirement to deliver detailed tourist information about South Australia’s national parks and wildlife via the World Wide Web (Internet). It also identified a requirement to introduce an e-Commerce facility for the booking tours, accommodation or camping sites, as well as the sale of retail products.
Geospatial International has developed a secure e-Commerce solution supporting on-line booking and financial transactional services for State and Regional Park Passes, Park Tours, Park Camping and Park Accommodation, on-line retailing of Park merchandise as well as providing comprehensive tourist and educational information and calendar events to promote parks nationally and internationally.
The system, ParksWeb, developed by Geospatial International delivers:
National Parks & Wildlife SA is responsible for managing the land, vegetation, natural and infrastructure assets of approximately 331 Parks within South Australia.
Geospatial International worked with NPWSA to identify the business requirements related to the management the infrastructure assets contained within the Parks, a subset of the total assets managed by NPWSA. Many of the asset management principles as well as the requirements for an asset information base identified will apply equally to the land, vegetation natural assets as they do to the infrastructure assets. These requirements were translated into the functional requirements the Spatial Information Presentation Module which will be a sub set of the total spatial information business requirements needed to support the management of all of NPWSA’s assets.
Geospatial International was one of the leading consulting organisations working with the South Australian Government as part of the Spatial Information Industry Program being undertaken by the Government.
Geospatial International undertook a major role in the Spatial Information Integration Services Project by providing the concept design, spatial domain and technical experts for the project. This project developed the technology core for the spatial data infrastructure for South Australia.
The technology developed is a highly scalable, e-commerce based software application. It provides the government, businesses and individuals with easy-to-use, World Wide Web technology based global access via intranets or the Internet to integrated spatial and aspatial data from a wide variety of sources without the requirement for specialised hardware, software, training or translation by the user.
The technology development was underpinned by a knowledge delivery methodology developed by Geospatial International. This methodology provides a basis for the multi tiered architecture of this and other mission critical information management systems.
Geospatial International was the team leader on the Asset Standards Study. This project, undertaken on behalf of the South Australian Government, examined the standards and data definitions required to facilitate the development of standardised spatially referenced asset databases and asset management information systems within the South Australian Government and Local Government.
Geospatial International has prepared the spatial information functional requirements for the Strategic Asset Management Information System (SAMIS), a system that will provide the South Australian Government with the ability to manage the State’s assets in a manner that will improve the State’s competitive advantage.
Geospatial International undertook a feasibility study into the distribution of Digitised Facilities Information System (DFIS) data and technologies for SA Water, South Australia’s water and wastewater utility. The study findings included the identification of an immediate need for an industry-standard browser to provide access to DFIS data by front counter and other staff.
SA Water is investigating the use of Geospatial International’s business case methodology for other capital works projects.
In a follow-up consultancy Geospatial International was engaged to determine the functional specification for an industry-standard web mapping browser to meet SA Water’s business needs.
Geospatial International recently developed a strategic framework and business case for the upgrade of DCDB-dependent data sets. This consultancy project involved the development of a strategic plan for the creation and maintenance of spatial linkages between core and dependent spatial data sets. While the emphasis of the consultancy was the linkages between the Digital Cadastral Database (DCDB) and DCDB-dependent data sets, the wider context of consistent relationships between other pairs of data sets were also considered.
Geospatial International has provided Fujitsu Australia Limited with key technical and systems development advice in relation to the production of a high-level implementation plan for the Risk Assessment and Disclosures (RAD) System for the South Australian Government Captive Insurance Corporation (SAICORP).
Geospatial International is currently working with Fujitsu and SAICORP to provide and manage the Risk Assessment and Disclosure system for SAICORP. This involves the operation and management of the infrastructure to deliver geographic information to re-insurance brokers around the world via the Internet together with the necessary data input, analysis and maintenance for the 15,000 assets owned by the South Australian Government.