A new approach to creating & managing a spatial data warehouse consortium

A new approach to creating & managing a spatial data warehouse consortium

Jim Chorel
General Manager, AltaLIS Ltd.
1500, 401 – 9th Avenue S.W.
Calgary, Alberta T2P 3C5
jim.chorel@altalis.com

Alberta’s Digital Mapping Infrastructure - A History of Partnership
In the early 1970’s, Albertans recognized the need for standardized, high quality, digital base maps to support planning, development and management activities in a collective and cost effective manner. In consultation with municipalities, utilities and private industry, the Government of Alberta (GOA) initiated a series of base mapping programs that have resulted in a comprehensive Alberta digital base mapping infrastructure that is estimated to a have a value of over $50 million.

As this mapping evolved, all levels of government, industry and others have collectively invested upwards of $100 million in Alberta building Automated Mapping/Facilities Management/Geographic Information Systems (AM/FM/GIS). These systems rely heavily upon the continued availability of a standardized, reasonably priced, easily accessed and up-to-date provincial base mapping infrastructure. The rate at which these new systems are being developed and implemented is increasing exponentially. Digital base mapping and the new technologies which use it (such as AM/FM/GIS) are key to the efficient delivery of many government and industry services as well as to the international competitiveness of a growing high technology Geomatics services industry in Alberta.

As Alberta’s base mapping infrastructure was compiled, it also had to be updated to reflect changes resulting from on-going development. Additionally, the mapping and its updates had to be stored and distributed to Albertans in an increasingly complex and rapidly evolving technological environment. In 1996, upon completing the geographic coverage of Alberta’s digital mapping infrastructure, the Alberta Environmental Protection (AEP) Department decided that it should not continue to be in the business of updating, storing, distributing and funding this mapping. The Government of Alberta sought a third party who could assume financial and operational responsibilities for these on-going tasks - protecting Alberta’s mapping infrastructure investment in exchange for the revenues collected from distributing the digital mapping.

By 1996, Alberta’s major utility companies had contributed in excess of $5 million dollars towards the initial compilation of digital Rural Cadastral mapping in an unprecedented cost- sharing arrangement with the GOA. Out of this historic partnership and mutual, strategic need for the continuance of Alberta’s digital mapping infrastructure, Spatial Data Warehouse (SDW) was formed as a not-for-profit partnership.

Spatial Data Warehouse is an Alberta-registered, not-for-profit company created on June 25, 1996 to take over and fund digital mapping activities that were previously undertaken and funded by the Government of Alberta. The copyright of the mapping data sets and all updates to those data sets remains with the Government of Alberta.

SDW’s objective is to provide for the long-term management (updating, storage and distribution) and associated funding of digital mapping “data sets” which, collectively, constitute Alberta’s digital mapping infrastructure. SDW’s core purpose is to maintain and promote the broadest possible distribution of the base mapping data to meet the needs of the Alberta market place and preserve the mapping data for the long-term benefit of Albertans.

In December 1997, after a detailed search and evaluation process, SDW selected AltaLIS Ltd. as the private sector company who would assist SDW. AltaLIS is a joint venture comprised of QC Data Ltd. of Calgary and Martin Newby Consulting Ltd. of Calgary. SDW determined that AltaLIS has the best compliment of surveying, mapping, data storage, data distribution, data marketing, management, financial and legal skills, resources and experience to help SDW achieve its long-term objectives. Through a joint venture agreement, SDW and its agent AltaLIS continue to fund the on-going updating, storage and distribution of Alberta’s digital mapping infrastructure.

A New Business Model
The new business model is written from the perspective of AltaLIS Ltd., a private company, who was assigned the mandate in late 1997 to re-engineer, manage, market and distribute the SDW base map datasets. What is presented next is a brief outline of the business case that has become a reality since 1997 for the client’s and stakeholders of Alberta’s digital mapping infrastructure.

The Context - 1997:
Alberta’s major utilities (electric, gas, telco) and the Provincial Government had a need for a more current and accurate digital land base. The data must be more efficiently maintained and distributed.

The Situation:
The product line of digital base map datasets owned by SDW and inherited by AltaLIS as distribution agent included cadastral and topographic spatial datasets.

Cadastral Data
The cadastral mapping dataset is a continuously evolving compilation of all plans of survey registered with Alberta Land Titles. This mapping depicts lot lines, lot numbers, road limits, right of way limits and other information found on plans of survey at accuracies of up to +/-3 metres in rural and to +/-0.15m in urban areas (figure 1). This mapping is being updated thousands of times each year from re-digitized plans of survey through several mapping contractors.

Topographic Data
This primary dataset provides topographic data at various scales (1:2,000,000 to 1 :20,000) for approximately 95% of the province at positional accuracies of up to 5 metres (figure 2). This mapping depicts information such as administrative boundaries, transportation networks, hydrography, townships, contours and a digital elevation model (DEM). This mapping was created from air photography using mostly photogrammetric mapping techniques. Unlike the cadastral mapping, the GOA had no rigorous updating program for the topographic mapping in place.

The Re-engineering - 1997 to 1999:
In the early 1900's, Henri Fayol originated the concept of reengineering: ‘To conduct the undertaking toward its objectives by seeking to derive optimum advantage from all available resources.’ Although the technological resources of our era have changed, the concept still holds.

The shortcomings of the business model were identified by AltaLIS since 1997 and were determined from numerous stakeholder and client meetings with the assistance of SDW. AltaLIS found that:

Cadastral property data was not meeting needs of key clients
Data updating process was too expensive & slow ($<1M> annual negative cash flow & several months update lag)
Data order to delivery time was high (up to 4 weeks)
No on-line order or delivery capability being developed
Pricing, licensing, product & services were one dimensional & limiting market potential
Aging technology and processes were resulting in high operating costs (ie.$200 per updated cadastral plan)
Government & Utility stakeholder investment of $100 million was losing value
Existing clients were being asked to pay a greater share of the costs

Key goals of AltaLIS’s re-engineering of SDW’s datasets are to:

Reduce cost of operations significantly.
Improve operational efficiency and service levels to all users.
Increase demand for SDW data by improving the product and improving the product for SDW Participants.
Increase data sales to third parties by making data more available and accessible.
Increase data revenues from third parties by improving the marketing, pricing, and licensing arrangements.

Significant milestones of the AltaLIS process since 1997 are noted below :

Data Centre Move
six weeks to move data centre to AltaLIS facilities in Calgary
1.5 PY’s to operate order desk (reduced from 4)
data order to delivery time shortened (to less than one hour)
soon to be on-line delivery
Digital Data Update Process (Cadastral)
utilized land surveyors existing practices and platforms
gained stakeholder support
lobbied to change legislation and filing requirements (update fees moved to map changer, process, standards, etc)
integrated activities with Land Titles Office automation initiatives (figure 3)
reduced costs and improved timeliness (50% reduction in costs, update turnaround to 5 days average)
financed, built & used sophisticated integration tools (AltaLIS Dynamic Database method increases accuracy over time)
Marketing – ‘A New Business Plan’
radically changed pricing
created alliances with value-added service providers (VASP)
increased data availability and accessibility
increased data accuracy and currency
harnessed technology
created more flexible pricing and licensing to meet client demands

Next Steps :

continue outsourcing process with utility companies
create Title Mapping product in-sync with the cadastral base
re-engineer Crown land registry maintenance processes
re-engineer topographic data update processes (viability study completed Sept., 2000)
increase market for data with next phase of pricing and licensing options
expanding the model to other jurisdictions (now)

Conclusion
AltaLIS, together with its stakeholders and partners involvement, has re-engineered many of its existing base map data products, systems and processes to date with several new datasets now under development.

Goals accomplished in AltaLIS’s first 3 years (1998-2000) were:

Moving the data information asset from the Alberta Government to an efficient data management system.
Cadastral updating process reengineered to produce continually more accurate data.
Digital filing requirement introduced which helped reduce costs by 50%.
Improving the quality and usefulness of the cadastral data.
Completing long term Joint Venture Agreement with SDW
Creating improved output formats to meet market demand
Completion of a Topographic Updating Viability Study
Creation of 6 new licensing and pricing options
Introduction of VASP Agreements

This presentation outlined management issues faced by SDW and AltaLIS during the first three years of this initiative. Highlights included the business process changes that were necessary to support the significant technical re-engineering efforts which included legislative reform, new stakeholder partnerships, flexible pricing & revenue models, implementation of data maintenance, and enhanced distribution systems.