Core Mapping Project Has Centralized the City's Geographic Data, Producing Consistent Basemaps to Support Effective Municipal Operations

CALGARY – ESRI Canada User Conference -  May 25, 2011 – ESRI Canada today presented the City of Calgary with an Award of Excellence for enhancing its basemapping capabilities using ESRI geographic information system (GIS) technology.  Through its Core Mapping Project, the City has migrated municipal land information maintenance from their previous computer-aided design (CAD) system to a GIS environment.  Centralizing this data in a GIS has enabled the City to create consistent basemaps for use across municipal operations.
 
“The City of Calgary has been highly regarded among municipalities for their quality basemapping services,” said Alex Miller, president, ESRI Canada.  “Moving their data to an enterprise GIS allows the City to enhance its accuracy and accessibility.  Now, departments throughout their organization can integrate these basemaps into various business applications to increase efficiency, improve decision making and enhance community services.  We commend the City for their focus on leveraging advanced technology such as GIS to take their mapping capabilities to the next level.”

Every day, the City supplies geographic data to several departments including utilities, public works, asset management and taxation.  To increase efficiency in delivering high-quality, up-to-date geographic information and basemaps, the City used ESRI's ArcGIS technology to integrate legal surveys, land ownership and topographic data into a geodatabase.  Now, City departments can access this data from a central source, saving valuable time and allowing staff to focus on analysis.  Instead of updating information in several systems, all basemapping maintenance is now done through the GIS.  This has eliminated redundant processes and improved data consistency across all systems.

“Using GIS has allowed us to significantly improve our mapping services,” said John Lethaby, project manager, Infrastructure & Information Services, City of Calgary.  “With this new platform, we're able to maximize the value of our maps and data by integrating them with business applications and helping users across our organization apply them to various interests.  It provides a solid foundation for increased collaboration and innovation within the City to deliver better services to citizens.”

The City also worked closely with ESRI's product development team in enhancing the parcel editing functionality in ArcGIS.  This allowed City staff to more effectively integrate the plans submitted through the land development process into a single legal survey parcel fabric.  In the future, the City plans to expand the GIS foundation by integrating additional databases such as their roads, water and wastewater network.

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About the City of Calgary
The City of Calgary is the largest city in the Province of Alberta, with a population of more than one million.  It is the third-largest municipality in Canada and the largest Canadian metropolitan area between Toronto and Vancouver.  The City's economy is centred on the petroleum industry, as well as agriculture, tourism and high technology.  More information is available at
www.calgary.ca.

About ESRI Canada
Founded in 1984, ESRI Canada provides enterprise geographic information system (GIS) solutions that empower businesses, governments and educational institutions to make timely, informed and mission-critical decisions by leveraging the power of geography.  The company distributes the world's leading GIS software from ESRI, Telvent, Cityworks and other technology partners.  Headquartered in Toronto, the company serves over 10,000 customers from 16 regional offices across Canada and has been named as one of the top 250 Canadian IT companies and top 25 IT professional services providers in Canada by the Branham Group.  Information about ESRI Canada can be found at esricanada.com.

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