Chris Warneford, Kenton County’s public works director, approached NKAPC staff last year about developing a website that would provide near-real-time status of snow crews on county-maintained roads. Warneford requested a website that would be easy to use while providing citizens with valuable information about street conditions.

“Kenton County citizens’ safety is our number one priority. Whether going to work, the grocery, or taking their children to school, they need to be able to plan their road trips safely,” Warneford says.

The County’s public works team will be able to update the status of roads as plow and truck operators complete sections that have been treated. The street status will be classified as plowed, treated, plowed and treated, and no activity. “It was important to the public works team that we could update the road status from anywhere in the field without having to go into the office.” said Warneford.

NKAPC staff created a data entry form that public works personnel can access from any computer with internet access. It not only records the status, but has a time stamp feature so citizens viewing the map know when the road was last treated. This feature is important especially during a snow event that may span several days. When fully operational, the website will be available to commuters on area roads through a mobile data client.

The website is currently being tested by Fiscal Court personnel and will be rolled out soon to the public. In addition to county-maintained roads, city streets that are maintained by the County under contract will be added to the website. The City of Crestview Hills has already been added to the snow tracker website. Other Kenton County cities will be added in the future.

Aerial Imagery Acquisition, Digital Orthoimagery Production, LiDAR Acquisition, Digital Elevation Dataset Production, Digital Oblique Aerial Imagery Acquisition/Production & Associated Application Software, and Photogrammetric Updates and New Compilation of GIS Planimetric Mapping

Please use this link to view the RFP

To download the county boundaries, grid layout and monumentation control, click here.

Christy Powell, GISP, one of NKAPC’s senior GIS specialists, represented NKAPC and the LINK-GIS partnership by presenting a conference session entitled ‘Succeeding in a Slow Economy: Financing, Implementing, and Supporting GIS on a budget.’ Powell’s presentation included staff’s experience with revamping the LINK-GIS website.

“We thought it would be a good topic because of the recession’s impact on local GIS budgets,” Powell said. “We discussed our website project, the benefits we achieved by working with two contractors, and how we accomplished our goal within a limited budget.”

Billed as ‘The Biggest GIS Event on Earth,’ the conference brought together over 16,000 GIS users and company executives from over 140 countries, who gather to attend technical sessions and connect with other GIS users.

ESRI used this year’s conference as a platform to roll out its new ArcGIS 10 software. NKAPC will download this upgrade and begin learning its new features in the near future.

NKAPC’s feature in the conference’s 25th Anniversary Map Book gave conference attendees a look at how LINK-GIS mapping has progressed since its inception over two decades ago. This annual product includes a sampling of high-quality maps from local, state, and federal government agencies.

“Our maps were included in the “Now and Then” section that featured four agencies that were pursuing digital mapping back in the ’80s,” Brush said.

NKAPC’s “then” map was featured in the 1987 conference map book and reprinted in the 25th edition alongside the “now” version of the same map. Each conference participant received one of these map books.

“We were in very good company,” Brush concluded.

LINK-GIS is a collaborative electronic mapping partnership managed by the Northern Kentucky Area Planning Commission on behalf of Kenton and Campbell County Fiscal Courts, the Kenton and Campbell County PVAs, the Northern Kentucky Water District, and Sanitation District 1 of Northern Kentucky.

“The site’s My Community viewer allows property owners to go online and see their voting precinct, zoning and school districts, in one simple table,” said Christy Powell, GISP, senior GIS specialist and co-programmer of the function. Additionally, the site shows restaurants, grocery stores, fire/police stations and other services in Kenton County. Staff plans to add information for Campbell and Pendleton Counties in the next phase of the project, which will be completed by next June.

Using technology similar to Google Maps, the LINK-GIS site uses the pushpin idea to point out the information searched for. “Instead of using general data, we’re using very specific, local information created over time by various local agencies,” Powell said.

In addition to My Community, the LINK-GIS website’s new, cutting edge Online Store with PayPal is the first of its kind in the region. “The store allows you to buy and download maps, digital data, aerial photography or LiDAR,” said Trisha Brush, GISP, NKAPC’s deputy director for GIS administration. Engineers, surveyors, and appraisers now have immediate access to data, any time of the day.

NKAPC partnered with two vendors, Stantec and Woolpert, to implement the website’s changes over the past year. The new site’s ArcGIS Server technology is cutting edge and is the current standard from the NKAPC’s software vendor, ESRI.

“We also have an improved content management system,” Powell said, “so we’re not having to do as many manual updates, which will be quicker and easier down the road.”

NKAPC GIS staff recently shared their website’s features with more than 30 people in the Cincinnati GIS Users Group, who are using similar technology for their agencies.

Staff has also been asked to speak at an upcoming statewide OGRIP (Ohio Geographically Referenced Information Program) meeting and at the ESRI International User Conference in July.

“The way the site is arranged, the new map viewers and store all point to the fact that we’re working on our customer service via the internet,” Brush said. “Getting data and providing service was our goal and I believe we achieved it.”

Snyder, a principal GIS specialist at NKAPC, plans to share the topic and a hands-on demonstration with students in CINSAM’s Middle School Emerging Technologies Camp. The camp, facilitated by community professionals and NKU faculty members, is designed for gifted students as an enrichment camp in applied science, mathematics, and technology including engineering concepts.

While Snyder has been sharing the “What is GIS Technology” lesson to schools in the area for a while now, this is the first time NKAPC is participating in NKU’s summer camp program.

“We’re always looking for emerging technologies—what’s new and what’s happening,” said Thomas Brackman, physical science and pre-engineering recruiting director for NKU. “So, the GIS technology expertise NKAPC is bringing will be something new because we haven’t done anything like this. We’re looking forward to it.”

Snyder is also looking forward to working with this specific group of learners. “Students who have an aptitude for science, engineering, and math should be fun to work with. All of these kids should be interested.”

The 15 to 16 eager students expected to attend the emerging technologies camp will learn how GIS brings geography, mathematics, and IT together.

“I’ll talk about the idea of layers and data as well as attributes in a table being tied to geometry on a map,” Snyder said. “I’ll also show examples of applications for GIS locally that we’re doing to help them get their heads around it.”

The students will then use LINK-GIS data to do a problem-solving project as well as work with the LINK-GIS website.

In addition to GIS, other topics the camp covers are entomology, physics, and nanotechnology. The students will put together a quick presentation of what they learned to present to their parents at the end of the week.

“We just scratch the surface,” Brackman said. “But you can ignite that fire and expose students to different topics.”

Pictometry captures high-resolution images obliquely—or from an angle—allowing users such as emergency services personnel, property assessors, and zoning officials to see land features and structures clearly and in their entirety.

In making its decision, the LINK-GIS partnership weighed the benefits of the new images to local government officials as they pursue their responsibilities.

“These new images will be really helpful for fire fighters and police responding to calls,” said Trisha Brush, GISP, NKAPC’s deputy director for GIS administration. “It gives them eyes on the ground before they even arrive at the site. This extra time can provide opportunities when seconds matter.”

Pictometry’s interactive measuring tool will also be helpful for zoning and property valuation staff. They can measure buildings from the ground up, see how many stories a house has, and measure the perimeter around a structure, for example. Traditional bird’s-eye view images don’t provide this ability.

This new 3D ability to see properties from their desk will help assessors save time and money by cutting field costs. It will also allow them to see restricted properties, verify records, and resolve claim disputes.

“The overall benefit of having Pictometry is we can help citizens of the respective counties more quickly and efficiently,” Brush said. “It gives us a 3D view of building access points in emergency situations, and puts us there without actually being there.”

Another added benefit is that Pictometry International Corp. will refly the two counties without charge in the event of a natural disaster and provide the resulting photos quickly. This can aid in faster cleanup efforts and insurance claim processing.

“We can show snapshots before and snapshots after, and see what properties were affected,” Brush said.

The new 3D aerial images will be shot in February/March. LINK-GIS partnership expects to be learning and using the data by July.

The LINK-GIS partnership is a multi-jurisdictional relationship made up of the Fiscal Courts of Kenton and Campbell Counties, the PVAs of Kenton and Campbell Counties, the Northern Kentucky Water District, SD1, and the Area Planning Commission. NKAPC is the managing partner and provides centralized support services to the others as well as assistance to the public.

“The Census Bureau wants cities to submit new addresses that have been created for residential purposes since the 2000 census,” said Tom East, GISP, one of NKAPC’s senior GIS specialists. “That includes dwellings that may not yet be complete, but that may be inhabited on Census Day.”

A little over a year ago, East and several other members of NKAPC’s GIS department searched permit records and 2007 aerial photography to document what had been built in the three jurisdictions since 2000.

“This process went fairly smoothly,” East said, “because we work with the officials in all these jurisdictions and have a good idea of where development occurred.”

The process was also facilitated since NKAPC is responsible for assigning all new addresses created in those areas.

Although familiar with areas, East said there were a few challenges and issues between rural, suburban, and urbanized areas.

“The biggest problem we face in rural areas is multiple homes on one property,” East explained. “Although there may be a house and two trailers on one property sharing a mailbox (and a single address), all need to be counted separately in order to ensure that each residence receives a Census form.”

Suburban and urban areas in Kenton County also present some challenges. While NKAPC is often aware of new development in cities where it does not provide building inspection services, there are sometimes special cases that are not always readily apparent.

“Duplexes can be an issue,” he said. “From an aerial photograph, it’s difficult to distinguish a single family dwelling from a duplex, so there’s some field work that needs to be done.”

This past summer the US Census Bureau performed field checks of the information NKAPC provided, noting any questions or disagreements.

“NKAPC staff is now reviewing the Census Bureau’s questions and comments, and responding,” East said. “But I haven’t really heard of any major concerns.”

All issues will be resolved according to the Census Bureau’s time table, East concluded.

The buzz involves Erlanger’s use of crime-mapping and reporting software, which provides real-time data for police officers in their patrol cars. The new technology allows officers to access reports generated from data put into the system immediately from all Kenton County cities served by the Erlanger dispatch center.

Todd Wallace, NKAPC’s systems administrator, set up the software for the dispatch center. He also configured the incorporation of NKAPC’s GIS mapping capabilities into the dispatch center’s crime mapping system.

“The software’s capabilities are helpful because numerous jurisdictions can use it at the same time, getting away from cities working in silos,” he said. “It creates reports for them on any data in the system immediately.”

In addition to reviewing real-time reports efficiently, officers are now able to search the database through Lucene, a Google-style search engine.

“Erlanger was one of the first in the world to implement a real-time search in a crime database system,” Wallace said.

Local officers have been using the software, which was developed by Information Builders, for about a year now. The increased efficiency and collaboration between departments has proved successful.

“NKAPC has worked behind the scenes to help make it happen,” said Trisha Brush, GISP, NKAPC’s deputy director for GIS administration.

NKAPC is committed to ongoing assistance to the Erlanger dispatch center.

“Our next challenge is for officers to be able to add more data such as warrants to the search,” Brush said. Warrants are currently accessed by a separate system, so this upgrade would make information gathering even more efficient.

The team is also working on an interactive mapping system that will illustrate addresses for all dispatch calls within a 24-hour period.

“We’re successful when our collaborators are successful,” concluded Brush.

In addition to that ongoing broadcast, the video will soon join the rotation for broadcast in Campbell County on Insight cable channels 16 and 20. Campbell County residents should check their channel listings for actual times of broadcast.

“The video has been received well in Kenton County,” said Trisha Brush, GISP, NKAPC’s deputy director for GIS administration. “It’s very informative and when people see it, they’ll be surprised at all the uses that GIS has and how agencies use GIS on a daily basis.”

LINK-GIS is a multi-jurisdictional geographic information system partnership funded by Campbell and Kenton County Fiscal Courts, the Campbell and Kenton County PVAs, Northern Kentucky Water District, SD1, and NKAPC.