Bail Maps and other State and Local GIS News

In Southend on Sea, in Sussex, UK suspects released on bail for certain crimes have as a condition of their bail not visiting certain areas. How do they know which areas? They get maps. While some people will ignore such a requirement, Sgt Bill Potter, of the town’s beat section, said: “it’s been quite successful." One commentor notes this program only works if the suspects can read maps!

- Echo News

In Lamar County, MS fire insurance rates are going up. Why? Insurance companies are more carefully coding the fire risk for properties. That's meant that some homeownemers are seeing sharp increases.

It reached the point that Mike Chaney, the state's commissioner of insurance, stepped in, ordering that any insurer using a GIS system had to "implement any resultant incrementally."

I wonder if that means if the companies did not use GIS for the determination, they could jump the rates quickly.  I find it odd the technology was specifically mentioned in the order (pdf).

- Hattiesburg America

The Bahamas and Cuba have come to an agreement about a maritime boundary.

The geographic coordinates that form this medium line between The Bahamas and Cuba were generated by a software called ‘Clarisoft’ in conjunction with Geographic Information Systems (GIS).  GIS, according to Antonique Strachan, a GIS analyst for the Bahamas National Geographic Information Systems Center (BNGIS), is a base system used to store, analyze and manipulate geographic locations.

- The Nassau Guardian

Cleveland’s GIS Online and other Government GIS News

Cleveland's GIS was expected in 2009 but finally went online in June 2011. There are seven different ArcGIS Server-based Flash/Flex apps on the Bing basemap. The local paper notes some limitations related to overlaying maps and up-to-date data on crime. The project came in, despite its delay, under the $31 million budget. Coming soon: the end of a $199/month contract for crime data.

- Cleveland.com

The names of NC 24 towns were printed in white instead of black in 10 percent of all 2011 DOT maps due to a "computer glitch."

New software is to blame, but it's not clear why just the town on that stretch of road were basically invisible. The tiny town of Zebulon (pop 4000) had a very vocal citizenry (officials were not aware of the problem) who let the state DOT know of the issue.

- News Observer

The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources offers aerial images collected between December 2009 and April 2010 to the public for use in assessing flood damage resulting from Tropical Storm Lee. The data is for Bradford, Centre, Clinton, Lycoming, Sullivan, Susquehanna and Wyoming counties.  i-cubed agreed to waive a restriction that would have limited the data to governmental-use only until next June. The data are available at this website (choose PAMAP 2010 Imagery Service Now Available).

- Gant Daily

Taipei’s Integrated Crime Management Solution and other International GIS News

Police in Taipei have started using a combination of Global Positioning System, Geographic Information System and security cameras and satellite images to boost their anticrime efforts.

It'll cost NT$2 billion (US$68.94 million) and can "integrate information provided by GPS, GIS and the “110" hotline telephone reporting system, to pinpoint the location of an incident so police can be quickly dispatched there."

The data described includes images from more than 13,354 digital cameras in the road surveillance system; an additional 27,000 high resolution cameras will be added by 2014. There is no discussion of how satelite images are to be used.

- GMA News

China announced that its mapping scientists have finished a 1:50,000-scale map database which will provide essential geographic reference to China's economic and social development, per an official with National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation. There was even a press conference about it!

NCIS Map Marks Areas Sailors Should be Careful and other Government GIS News

The map - provided to crew members of the first ship to arrive for Navy Week in the Port of Los Angeles - fast became the topic of discussion on Thursday, turning up in stories on national blogs, out-of-town newspapers, television stations - and, of course, on Facebook.

It outlined the downtown as a "high drug use and distribution" area [in San Pedro, CA].

While locals don't find their city unsafe, business took the initiative to help the visitors feel welcome in the local shops and restaurants. It's not clear the source of the data.

- Daily Breeze

The latest highway map from the State of Ohio includes a single barcode. It can be scanned with a cell phone to get up-to-date traffic information. I wonder if people will use it or simply bookmark the traffic website?

- Columbus Dispatch

Officials with the Muskegon County [Michigan] Family Court put GPS tracking units in court cars last month to find out if workers were going to where they were supposed to during the day.

The GPS units showed that the workers were doing things like going home, going to the gym and a golf course instead of keeping track of juveniles' whereabouts.     

Two workers resigned and one was disciplined. "You have nothing to worry about unless you are doing something wrong..."

- WWMT

It's a bit confusing to look at the Hutchinson Kansas interactive neighborhood health map.

Why? First off, it's map of the state of the districts based on many criteria: crime, "the value of the property, its age, whether it was owner occupied or a rental, physical deficiencies of the housing, the value of renovations, repairs and new construction across the city, crimes and their locations, median household income and whether housing units were occupied"etc. Second, it's not too interactive. If you click on a distrct you open a PDF of data. So far as I can tell, that's the limit of the interactivity. On the positive side, it does look like a valuable tool to hone in on areas in need of assistance and the local paper who created the map details how itw as created.

- Hutchinson News