James P Hall

Case Study: Development of an implementation plan for a geographic information system: case of Lincoln County

Many small to mid-size public agencies are facing a problem of how to develop and implement Geographic Information System (GIS) technologies in their operations. Since most of the information in government agencies has a spatial context, GIS has significant capabilities to integrate data from disparate databases and display information in new and unique ways for decision-making. GIS technologies can have applications and benefits across the enterprise; however, this enterprise-wide nature often hinders implementation. Local government agencies face significant organizational issues including serving a diversity of interests for data quality and database integration, oversight by publicly elected officials, and a lack of resources and technical expertise. This fictional and normative case describes a typical situation in a mid-size county. The case portrays an organizational environment that provides the basis for students to put themselves in the role of a County Administrator to develop a GIS implementation plan. This plan requires an analysis of the formal and informal organization. Major investigation areas include insight into the organizational issues of personnel relationships, GIS project identification and resource prioiritization. Above all, the goal is to plan development of a functional GIS that will be integrated into ongoing Lincoln County operations to improve organizational efficiencies and to increase services to various stakeholder groups.

COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS OF GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION: ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

An in-depth investigation of the costs and benefits of geographic information system (GIS) implementation in the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) is presented. The investigation addresses a critical need to determine the organizational impact and cost-effectiveness of this enter-prisewide information technology to achieve the greatest benefit. IDOT conducted an enterprise wide effort to portray GIS capabilities and to identify candidate GIS projects. Fourteen major GIS projects were selected on the basis of management priority, ease of implementation, and user commitment. A comprehensive cost-benefit analysis was developed over fiscal years 1995 through 2004. Costs were reasonably estimated from historical costs of the GIS investigation effort and future costs of GIS technical support and user area resources. The greatest portions of costs, over the 10-year time frame, were for personnel (67 percent) and consultant services (19 percent). For the more difficult benefits determination, the research employed two categories of benefits: efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency benefits would result from the automation of previous manual efforts, such as special-purpose cartographic production, with GIS outputs. Effectiveness benefits arise from traditionally intangible areas, such as increased integration and accessibility of information for improved decision making. Effectiveness benefits were estimated conservatively for two high-priority areas: accident analysis and program development. The result of the cost-benefit analysis of GIS implementation yielded a net present value of

Enterprisewide Spatial Data Integration of Legacy Systems for Asset Management: The Case of the Illinois Department of Transportation

2.9 million and an internal rate of return of 99.8 percent over the analysis period. This provided IDOT management with knowledge for strategic resource allocation decisions.

A Conceptual Model for Spatially Enabled E-Service Intelligence in State Transportation Development

This paper describes the spatial information system infrastructure implemented by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) to enable delivery of information to management decision makers in asset management applications. This spatial data warehouse infrastructure makes extensive use of geographic information system (GIS) technologies to integrate information from a variety of database structures and formats. GIS products and tools have been developed to portray and analyze these data in useful combinations focused on practitioner needs. In June 1999 the Governmental Accounting Standards Board issued Statement 34 requiring governments to have a systematic approach to managing their Digital Object Identifier: 10.1188/06.ONF. assets. As a result, transportation agencies have placed an increased emphasis on developing mechanisms to integrate information from disparate management information systems and legacy databases. IDOT has used GIS to develop a spatial data warehouse to enable integration. A val...

DATA PARTNERING BETWEEN TRANSPORTATION AGENCIES FOR MUTUAL BENEFIT: THE ILLINOIS EXPERIENCE

Abstract The development of the annual and multi-year transportation program in the United States is an example of a complex process with multiple decision-making activities at national, state, and local governmental agency levels. Transportation program development decisions are dynamic and interdisciplinary and involve considerable tradeoffs in financial, safety, and political contexts; state transportation agencies are developing spatial data warehouse infrastructures using geographic information system (GIS) technologies to address these decision needs. This article presents a conceptual model for the development of spatially enabled E-service intelligence products for state and local agency transportation program development and a hypothetical example of intelligence products for a transportation safety program.

Cost/benefit analysis of geographic information system implementation: case of the illinois department of transportation

The Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) has taken an active approach to identifying and implementing data partnering relationships that provide mutual benefits. These partnerships involve other state agencies, local agencies, and metropolitan planning organizations. Demand has increased for comprehensive, accurate, and timely information for planning and asset management activities. Data partnering relationships can provide many benefits, including more complete data collection, data verification, and improved data accessibility. Effective data partnering requires well-defined responsibilities, cooperation, and the commitment of each agency. IDOTs data partnering relationships in three critical areas of data collection and dissemination are detailed: rail-highway crossings, traffic, and structures. Given trends in the decreasing resources for data collection, multiagency data partnering activities likely will increase. It is important to manage these activities properly to improve the enterprise data resource.