West Midlands Fire Service
West Midlands Fire Service [WMFS] serves the major conurbation of Birmingham plus the surrounding area. Over 2.5 million people are served by 40 fire stations and over 2,000 users. In 2004, WMFS went to tender for a full corporate GIS to include the loading of data into a new central data store, Intranet based web mapping, desktop mapping and consultancy/training. WMFS wanted to take advantage of their inhouse development expertise in Oracle Forms, so they required systems which they could adapt inhouse.
Choosing a supplier
WMFS’ requirements included an end-to-end corporate GIS, as follows:
- A data loading tool (compatible with Oracle);
- A web mapping toolkit, which could be used to deploy mapping applications via mobile devices and touch screen terminals;
- The ability to further develop the Internet/Intranet mapping application inhouse using Oracle Forms;
- Desktop mapping software combined with routing software;
- Consultancy/implementation services.
Dotted Eyes submitted a full tender submission which met all WMFS’ requirements.
Dotted Eyes was successful as the Company’s offering included added functionality to enable WMFS’ Development Team to easily adapt Dotted Eyes’ web mapping application, ResponseMX, inhouse, plus the intuitive interface would make it easy to rollout the GIS organisation wide without user training.
Loading the data
The digital map data was uploaded into one digital map data store using SuperpOSe, Dotted Eyes’ market leading loading tool. SuperpOSe uploaded and applied change only updates to the OS MasterMap Topography and ITN Layers into an Oracle database.
Customising the Coalesce Community Explorer
Dotted Eyes added functionality to the ResponseMX Developer Framework to help WMFS’ inhouse development team to achieve their objectives. This team, led by Tim Needham, customised ResponseMX, using Oracle Forms. Such was the success that Tim Needham won Computing Magazine’s IT Professional of the Year Award in 2006 for his work on Coalesce. WMFS also won the AGI Innovation and Best Practice Award (Local Government) in 2006 for the Coalesce Community Explorer.
Coalesce's user-friendly attributes
- The intuitive interface minimises the need for user training;
- Users can view accurate, up-to-date digital maps on a variety of devices including desktop PCs, in-cab mobile data terminals (touch screen) and on handheld devices;
- Users can switch between a conventional map view and an aerial photography view;
- Relevant information, such as fire hydrants and telephone boxes, can be overlaid;
- Users simply click on the screen to pinpoint an incident location and capture the information in the database;
- Dynamic maps track the current positions of any vehicles assigned to an incident.
Other benefits
The analysis made possible with Coalesce helps to ensure that appropriate levels of Fire Service resources, in both prevention and responding activities, are available and correctly targeted in order to reduce risk to the community.
The mapping systems are used for fire analysis, such as providing maps for the Corporate Strategy document. This includes maps showing the geographic location of accidental dwelling fires, building and vehicle arson fires and secondary fires. WMFS also map the risk of road traffic collisions. This is an invaluable aid to resource planning as WMFS now have a statutory obligation to respond to Road Traffic Collisions.
West Midlands Fire Service can share the information and maps with partner organisations.
Next steps
View Dotted Eyes' spatial data loading (SuperpOSe), web mapping or data products, or read more case studies.