City of Bertram Water Utility

• GPS of 1500 infrastructure points
• Digital mapping
• Web map publishing

• ArcGIS desktop^TM
• Trimble GeoXH^TM sub-meter GPS
• ArcPad^TM field mapping
  
• ArcGIS online map publishing

The City of Bertram is a community of 1200 residents, just an hour's drive from Austin, Texas.  Despite its small size, Bertram is ideally located between the state capital and the heart of Central Texas.  Recently the City embarked upon a project to improve its water infrastructure and associated information management, and in the process, proved that technology is not only for the big city.

Using Technology to Conserve Water

The water utility department embarked upon a program to reduce loss within their water distribution system, including the replacement of their 750 water meters with radio automatic-read meters, and the mapping of their water delivery infrastructure.   In conjuction with this effort, Vu Consulting completed the GPS mapping of 1500 water utility infrastructure points, delivering a new GIS database and high-accuracy digital maps.  In addition, making use of cloud computing technology that has only become available recently, Vu Consulting puslished new Utility and Planning & Zoning maps to the web using ArcGIS Online cloud hosting technology. All work was accomplished within 3 months.

Better Data, Better Decisions

Although the City had conducted mapping in the past, these files were outdated and unreliable, and most importantly, were not readily accessible for day-to-day use by operations and administrative staff. To solve that problem, Vu Consulting conducted a field data collection program using the latest sub-meter GPS technology. Over the course of  3 months, Vu and City staff jointly collected 1500 unique locations, including water meter boxes, water valves, manholes, and cleanouts.  In addition, a custom map grid system and digital map books were created covering the entirety of the water distribution  and wastewater collection systems, All information was incorporated into a Geographic Information System (GIS), with the long-term goal of infrastructure management.

Additional Value for Planning & Zoning

As a valuable add-on, planning and zoning maps were updated to depict more accurate city limits, parcel boundaries and the extra-territorial jurisdiction (ETJ).  Prior to the project, parcel property boundaries did not align with recent aerial photography.  As a result, it was difficult to make decisions regarding zoning and requests for exemptions.  To solve the problem,  Vu performed a correction of parcel boundary lines and integrated the information into the City's new GIS database.

Publishing Maps Quickly... in the Cloud

With many GPS field data projects, a lot of good information is collected, but that information is not available to staff and others who can benefit.  In the past, publishing digital maps to the internet had been resource-intensive and cost prohibitive, requiring the installation and configuration of extra computer infrastructure and complicated software.  With the advent of affordable cloud technology from ESRI, Microsoft Bing^TM and Google Maps^TM, web map publishing is now available to many small government agencies.

Making using of affordable cloud computing technology and hosting services, and to make the data available to staff and others, Vu Consulting published the data on ESRI's ArcGIS Online framework, a sample of which can be viewed below.

If you face similar frustrations of outdated and unavailable mapping data, and believe you can benefit from accurate GPS field data collection and web mapping, contact Vu Consulting today, to discuss how you can get started.