house maintenance with the ACF project. While many counties do not have the financial resources to employ extra help for these purpos- es, some have employed contractors to maintain the data for them.


Te maintenance of this data is crucial to the


state. In addition to assisting government agen- cies, public organizations, private businesses and homeowners, it also assists many individu- als who use GPS devices. As roads and addresses may frequently change due to construction, redistricting, or urban development, the files become less accurate over time. Te road files that are available to the state are uploaded to the commercial databases that feed into GPS systems, and are what the world sees when it accesses tools such as Google Maps. Te AGIO and participating counties are continuing the effort to maintain these files to ensure that accurate statewide geographical


“WHY WE LOVE IT!”


“


continue to improve. Physical Addressing in Calhoun County has also allowed for easier access to our residents for private delivery personnel such as UPS, Fed X and also public utilities. Te future is bright for us with the implementation of physical addressing and 911, we can build on our capabilities with additional equipment such as laptops in our Law, Fire & EMS vehicles that will take the ‘guess work’ out of responding to a resident in our county. Quicker response times save lives, property & money. Te efforts that Calhoun County has put forth are truly beneficial to all the residents of our county as well as the responders.


I Jim Wheeless, GIS Coordinator, City of Bentonville


with a GPS beacon. New World uses the location of the vehicle and the nature of the emergency to determine who to dispatch and any backup agency that should be notified. Every police car, ambulance, and fire vehicle is also equipped with a rugged laptop, which uses the centerline file along with other feature classes to show the emergency provider where they are and where all the other emergency vehicles are located and the location of the caller. Without the centerline file this software could not be implemented.


W COUNTY LINES, FALL 2010


e use the Benton County centerline data as a crucial data set in our New World dispatch software. Te software dispatches police, fire, and ambulance. New World is very map dependent. Every police car, ambulance, and fire vehicle is equipped


computers on board. Terefore, they can see where they are, as well as where they need to go. For our emergency responders this has been the most time saving and valuable tool this county has ever invested in.


C Tony Rinehart, Calhoun County OEM/9-1-1 Coordinator


n Calhoun County, we have just recently made our conversion from rural route address- ing to physical addressing. Already we have seen a drastic improvement in response times of our responders. As we continue to improve our physical addressing we expect them to


History of Road Centerlines Mid-1980s –The U.S. Census Bureau develops a


vector file format called Topologically Integrated Geo- graphic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER), which could be used to spatially represent Census information.


1985 – Arkansas Legislature adopts the Arkansas Public Safety Communications Act.


This creates the


necessary legal structure to establish and fund E9-1-1 systems. The law includes mapping as an allowable cost for E9-1-1.


Conway County Judge Jimmy Hart praised the program and all its potential uses.


data continues to be available at no fee to the user. For more information, one may contact the AGIO’s Geographic Information Officer Shelby Johnson, at (501)-682-2767, or visit the AGIO Web site, www.gis.arkansas.gov.


Late 1980s – Faulkner, Pulaski, Saline, and Washing-


ton Counties begin providing E9-1-1 service using digital road maps.


1990 – The first TIGER files are released and pro-


vide the first nationwide street centerline coverage of the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island areas.


Early 1990s – The TIGER file spawns the use of a


GIS technique known as “geocoding,” which allows a user to locate an address by interpolating the address to the matching road segment.


Early to Mid-1990s – Counties across Arkansas begin implementing E9-1-1 systems.


Some counties Dale Booker, Nevada County 911 Coordinator


enterline and Point Addressing has been in service in Nevada County for approximate- ly eight years, this has greatly reduced the response time of our ambulance service, fire departments and law enforcement. All of our ambulances and Sheriff’s cars have laptop


develop digital centerline maps to support addressing. GIS users begin seeing the benefit of the geocoding tech- nique to locate emergencies more quickly.


1995 – Arkansas Highway & Transportation Depart-


ment Mapping Section completes a digital mapping effort, producing a county series of digital graphics. The maps produced from aerial photography have extraordinary ac- curacy but lack county road names.


1996 – MapQuest introduces the first popular Inter-


net Address Matching and Routing Service that uses a commercial road centerline map. The maps are lacking road names in rural areas.


Late 1990s – Wireless telephone usage explodes.


This creates a new challenge for locating emergencies from wireless callers.


2001 – Act 1250 of 2001 creates the Arkansas Geographic Information Office.


Its primary mission is to


coordinate geographic information systems for Arkansas. 2001 – State GIS users identify flaws in the various


digital maps. The problem is most maps are not synchro- nized with the County E9-1-1 maps. The federal govern- ment and Internet map providers do not have access to road name changes resulting from County E9-1-1 imple- mentation.


2002 – The Arkansas Centerline File program is cre-


ated. The program publishes the first few participating counties.


2003 – The Commercial Mobile Radio Service Board,


Arkansas’ wireless E9-1-1 authority, provides partial funding to counties to implement wireless E9-1-1 service. Part of the funding is used for mapping.


33


“


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60