Case Study | Google Maps API Premier
City of Charlotte improves constituent services with Google Maps API Premier
At a Glance hat they wanted to do: W • Improve services • Reduce costs • Maximize visibility into services • Streamline procedures for city personnel What they did: • Combined Google Maps API Premier and ESRI’s ArcGIS Server to create Virtual Charlotte What they achieved: • Increased responsiveness to constituents
Organization Charlotte is the largest metropolitan area in North Carolina, with over 730,000 residents. Incorporated in 1768 and originally called Charlotte Town, the historic city was named for Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III of Great Britain. Similarly, surrounding Mecklenburg County was named for MecklenburgStrelitz, the German duchy where Queen Charlotte was born. Today, Charlotte is a thriving banking and and emerging energy center. Challenge Charlotte continually seeks innovative technologies to provide quality services to residents. For quick and accurate response, city personnel need real-time access to information from multiple business systems, not just from a geographic information systems (GIS) database or a single operational system. City staff and customer service representatives (CSRs) in CharMeck 311, the contact center for the City of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County—the primary points of contact for many citizens seeking services—require a holistic view of information to provide comprehensive, seamless service. Many requests pertain to locations, such as garbage pick up, or information about construction permits, street maintenance, etc.
• Reduced licensing costs 60 percent • Enabled citizen empowerment and self-service
“ By switching to Google Maps, we also saved 60 percent in licensing cost compared with renewing the legacy solution.” —Jeff Stovall, chief information officer, City of Charlotte The city long relied on legacy mapping solutions to view operational activities, but these were often slow and difficult to use. CSRs had to navigate among several applications and click multiple times for the information they needed to respond to inquiries and fulfill requests. In adidition, the legacy mapping application had a traditional GIS interface that intimidated non-GIS staff. An improved, comprehensive, easy-to-use solution was needed. “Our legacy mapping solutions were rooted in GIS-centric functions,” says Jeff Stovall, City of Charlotte chief information officer (CIO). “It was time consuming to add new layers representing features such as highways or trash-pickup locations or to make interconnections to databases using web services. In practice, it meant that it was more difficult for CSRs and other city employees to optimize services for constituents.” Solution In 2008, the city evaluated several options, including its existing ESRI ArcGIS Server, Google Maps, Bing Maps, and open source GIS solutions. An integrated combination of Google Maps API Premier and ESRI’s ArcGIS Server was the best way forward. The ArcGIS server connected to both GIS and non-GIS data, while
About Google Maps API Premier
Google Maps API Premier makes it easy for companies to include fully interactive Google Maps on their public and internal websites. The Maps API helps customers and employees make the right business and purchasing decisions by visualizing important information on a familiar map. For more information visit: www.google.com/enterprise/earthmaps/ maps.html “ With Google Maps, the net result is greatly improved access to vital information and visibility into the city’s delivery of public services.” —Jeff Stovall, chief information officer, City of Charlotte
Google Maps offered an intuitive, familiar interface. “By switching to Google Maps, we also saved 60 percent in licensing cost compared with renewing the legacy solution,” Stovall says. In March 2009, the city implemented a web application named Virtual Charlotte to meet the demand for location-based operational information maintained and stored within its multiple business systems. This includes operational, workflow, and business-process applications that various city departments use daily for work- and asset-management, CRM, and computer-aided dispatch. Although traditional GIS data sets constitute a large proportion of this system, operational data is continually and easily updated by city workers in various business systems. Virtual Charlotte enables visualization of live 311 calls, traffic accidents, construction projects, permits, and street-maintenance services as well as automated vehicle tracking. Results Multiple City departments now collaborate on Virtual Charlotte, which renders operational activities and geospatial information using ArcGIS Server and served by Google Maps interface for city personnel and residents alike. The system serves as the all-purpose geospatial viewer for location-based operational information maintained and stored within Charlotte’s business systems. The interface with Google Maps is so easy to use that staffers need little training, even if they have no GIS background. The integration of Google Maps and the ArcGIS Server has made data once stored in siloed systems much more accessible. By accessing a single interface, staffers can access nearly 100 layers of operational information from various sources, including live feeds, all on one map. The system response and refresh time for users to access and interact with the map is greatly improved, letting the city respond much faster to inquiries. City departments can view the locations of service requests, construction projects, street closures, and so on from multiple agencies. This facilitates coordination and collaboration across business units working in the same geographic area. After two and half (since 03/2009) years’ operation, the system has become widely popular within city government and provides a powerful visualization tool for citizens. “Even those GIS professionals who questioned Google Maps’ data quality and precision began eagerly adopting Virtual Charlotte,” says Stovall. “It is so easy to use that it unlocked the power of the geospatial data and made collaboration possible.” Virtual Charlotte has become an effective communication vehicle for the city to provide superb service information. After it implemented new waste-pickup schedules and zoning, the city displayed the information on Virtual Charlotte. Citizens can easily go to the website, type in their addresses, and quickly find out their zones and pickup dates, all on the familiar Google Maps interface. “With Google Maps, the net result is greatly improved access to vital information and visibility into the city’s delivery of public services,” Stovall says.
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