Geospatial data is starting to lose its reputation as 'special data for specialists'. This is something for the geospatial community to celebrate. No longer is location information hidden away under the lock and key of a single department; it is becoming an important resource for the whole organisation. Take, for instance, the move to add location to mainstream business applications such as asset management, work management and customer management.
This cannot help but change the way spatial data is maintained and used. Gone are the days when 'islands' of spatial data were kept separate from mainstream systems. Gone are the days when the only people who updated spatial data were qualified professionals such as surveyors and cartographers. Today, you are just as likely to have a customer service rep viewing maps on a corporate intranet to assist in handling public enquiries as you are to have a maintenance worker using a personal digital assistant to find underground assets.
An even bigger revolution is well on its way, fuelled by new mobile technologies. In the management of resources - whether these are natural resources, human resources or mobile resources such as vehicles - it is no longer enough to describe where they are. New mainstream users of spatial data want to know (and the technology can deliver it) where resources are right now and what their status is.
Put simply, organisations that use this data must move from simply managing data in space to managing data in space and time. This broad interest in real-time location information gives rise to a set of new challenges in capturing spatial information. Just consider the contrast between 'change detection' of broadacre land use and city-based tracking and 'presence management' of mobile workers (often contractors). Change detection involves an analysis of historical data, and usually happens annually, whereas presence management involves constantly monitoring the location and status of workers to maintain a clear view of where mobile resources are, what they are doing and where they have been. This can help enterprises prove attendance on site, monitor contractors and respond to emergencies.
The obvious challenge that this throws up is the speed at which real-time information dates. Without underestimating the usefulness of historical data, the value of real-time location information is inversely proportional to its age. A telling sign is that we measure it in seconds, minutes and hours, a significant shift from a time when data had a shelf life of years.
To meet these real-time challenges effectively, we need to accept a view of technology that centres on the person in the field. Whether we're talking about a full-time employee or a contractor, and whether the mobile worker is conducting maintenance or security work, there is a common need for up-to-the-minute location information without the complexity of traditional GIS technologies. The mobile worker's technology needs to be simple, and easy to use, and needs to allow the worker to tap into corporate information in the field.
The next logical step is for the mobile worker to update this corporate information as a standard addition to the enterprise's workflows. With mobile technology, duplicate data entry and paperwork back at the office can be eliminated. This is more efficient and it makes more sense - after all, it is not the geometries of infrastructure, such as roads and pipe networks, that usually change, but attributes about the maintenance of the infrastructure, such as condition and work history. Other spatially related information, such as the current location of field crews and mobile assets, is usually updated automatically, for instance via GPS, or as a result of an event such as completion of a work order.
Some barriers to this data capture process still remain. Location and operational information are portrayed and updated over a spatial data infrastructure base, such as a road network. This data needs to be widely available, not constrained by bureaucracy from government or monopoly data providers.
With these barriers overcome, emerging business practices will flourish, and provide GIS professionals with exciting opportunities that have wide-ranging impacts.
A quick look at the national need for Intelligent Transport Systems supports this. Our traditional road network is now a complex system of connectivity and tidal flow, and intermodal transport is supported through interconnectivity of bikeways, roads, carparks and public transport.
In the not-too-distant future, businesses will optimise their operations by tracking vehicles along an intelligent road network infrastructure in real time. Benefits include increases in efficiency and safety in business and a boost to the information economy and national security. In turn, the capture of information will rely on sensors that detect where and when events occur, and alarms that are triggered by events. The timeliness of that event-based notification will be just as important as its location.
In short, the demands for spatial data are changing fast. Not only do enterprises want to integrate location information into widespread business processes; in many cases, the information must also be real-time. This is breathing life into our spatial data resources, increasing their value, and taking them to entirely new audiences.
At the same time, these emerging demands for spatial data are set to challenge the status quo in data creation and distribution, so that real-time business activities are optimised. For example, road network and address data, which guide intelligent transport or mobile workforce management applications, must be current, affordable and widely distributed for benefits to be realised. An efficient supply chain of spatial data infrastructure will reduce wastage, and will be a catalyst for a more efficient business community, and a healthier national economy. This will occur through the intelligent use of mobile resources (people, vehicles, cargo, etc) and the integration of a valuable resource (spatial data) into everyday business. Australia can ill afford to spend billions on a spatial data infrastructure and then fail to make it generally available.
A national logistics or courier company should be able to use spatial data to optimise its fleet: to reduce resource usage, decrease congestion, and minimise the time it takes to get people and cargo from source to destination. With affordable, available and current spatial data, this type of mainstream optimisation will be a reality. An exciting prospect, and an interesting challenge for those who are responsible for capturing and managing this data in the first place.
Lee Finniear is the managing director of Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions' IntelliWhere division www.intelliwhere.com.
