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Directing, and staying current with, utility-wide project status’
is a consistently challenging task. As capital improvement projects including
water, sewer, storm, street, telephone, cable, gas, power, etc. may run
parallel or conflict on a daily basis, for periods of weeks to months
at a time, IDM is pleased to present Utilities Coordination Mapping
(UCM), a GIS mapping system to track each project within a utility’s
service area. Creation of this spatially-enabled database may present
utility staff with the opportunity to view and edit projects underway
or proposed from one, utility-wide perspective map.
In principal, this concept and approach
is very simple: create a database which allows the City to view,
on a map, ongoing and proposed utility projects. The time saved
by the ability to 1) view each of these projects for conflicts and
2) query from the database, may see benefits in:
• Capital Savings
• Customer Service & Public Relations
• Conflict Avoidance
• Improved Project Sequencing
• Less frequent and more proactive meetings
• Better and quicker decision making
• Synergy with other utility departments
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Benefits of UCM from the Mapping Perspective:
- Encourages Proactive vs. Reactive Conflict Resolution – Ability
to foresee conflicts allows utility meetings to be about solving problems
vs. finding problems.
- Graphical Utility Conflict Notification – Color-coding of the
map created may highlight or denote a conflict which has or might arise.
- "Point-and-Click" ability for utility contacts – Directly
from the map, the database can provide project type, utility contact,
phone number, email, etc.
- View Hydraulic Model Results in the same Map – Hydraulic Model
database can be in-sync with CIP project database to allow model results
to be viewed near any project. This allows City staff to identify water
distribution issues near an upcoming utility project and coordinate
for water system improvements accordingly.
Benefits of UCM from the GIS Perspective:
- Spatial queries allow for quick identification of customer impact
– For example, "Find City customers within a 0.5 mile radius
which will be impacted by the street improvements along Lake St."
Queries of this nature will allow customers to be highlighted and the
database to be created for all impacted customers for subsequent customer
notification.
- Schedule Sensitive - Begin and End times of each project may be changed
on the fly and updated to the map to identify new conflicts and customer
impacts.
- Budget Intuitive – Database will promote management of ongoing
and proposed projects from a capital investment perspective. Budgeted
amounts may be allocated to each project and viewed on the map to ensure
an appropriate distribution of funds across a utility service area.
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