Where GIS Gets Lost: Interoperability

That’s the premise of Patrick Marshall’s article in GCN. He sites high GIS use based on an April survey but offers no figures on interoperability problems. He does however cite specific interoperability problems due to how geocoding is done.

In an April GCN survey, two-thirds of respondents said their agencies already use GIS applications, and most said they expected to use more geospatial data in the next five years. Surprisingly, 67 percent of respondents also reported that their organizations were already using location-based services for tracking vehicles or other assets.

Although hundreds of geospatial applications are blossoming at the federal, state and local levels, they have been developed in large part independently, without common standards.

As a result, an application developed by one organization often can’t digest and work with data collected by another.

There’s an exploration of HSIP and its limited availability to all levels of government due to licensing restrictions and query challenges. More interesting is how Sam Bacharach of OGC explains how its standards work, but are not always used.

However, just because most software supports OGC interfaces doesn’t mean that a consultant or vendor will use them. “They know [their own interfaces] better, and it’s to their competitive advantage to keep you tied up with their proprietary interfaces,” Bacharach said.
So he said he advises implementers to insist that any application be customized to use standard interfaces.