Snow Plow Tracking and GIS A tale of Two Cities As a consultant I've worked with both the City of Columbus and the City of Dublin to develop snow plow tracking GIS applications. Both Cities faced similar challenges and had similar goals when developing their Snow Plow AVL / GIS Systems. During today's presentation we'll focus on the technical components of each solution. By comparing and contrasting these two Cities I think you will quickly see that there is no wrong or right way to implement an AVL. Each community has to work with a different set of constraints such as the size or scale of each community and IT resources available within each community. Shoreh Elhami Citywide GIS Manager City of Columbus Ohio Erick Lobao GIS Manager PRIME3SG Brandon Brown GIS Administrator City of Dublin Ohio

A Tale of Two Cities *Simplified Centerlines Resources Columbus Dublin Vehicles 87 25 Staff 140 50 Square Miles 229 Centerline Miles 8,976 ~300 Centerline Segments 86,897 1,124* This slide gives the audience a sense of scale. Columbus is clearly a larger community. *Simplified Centerlines

Challenge 1 2 3 4 Gather User Requirements Application Design 1 2 3 4 Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Challenge Gather User Requirements What is this thing supposed to do? How should it work? Application Design Web-Application User Interface Data Development ESRI Geoevent Extension for ArcGIS System Architecture Geoprocessing Implementation, Testing, Deployment Happy Users!! Happy Servers!! In developing a snow plow AVL / GIS system each community faced a similar design challenges or questions. They essentially had the same The diagram shows the basic architecture. Both using Verizon Networkfleet Both using geoevent extension Please note we’re going to switch back and forth between Dublin to Columbus, with each focusing on each piece of the challenge. Dublin will kick us off.

Dublin Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Dublin

Dublin Megan’s Dream (Public Works Director) Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Dublin Megan’s Dream (Public Works Director) All Snow Vehicles – AVL, plow & salt sensors Easy way for staff to see: Which roads have we not treated? Vehicle history Snow event status updates Public view of our progress In developing a snow plow AVL / GIS system each community faced a similar design challenges or questions. We’ve simplified this into three items.

Dublin Requirements Reality Agile(ish) project management style Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Dublin Requirements Reality Agile(ish) project management style Technical Jibberish

Columbus Internal Application - 2013 External Application - 2014 Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Columbus Internal Application - 2013 (Support Dispatchers, Supervisors & Decision Makers) Display “Real-Time” Truck Information Search Truck Activity Generate Standard Reports External Application - 2014 (Answer common questions from the public) What has been treated? What priority is my street? City of Columbus started off with an internal application which replaced an existing system (C.O.M.B.A.T.) and later a public application was added. Essentially we went through two distinct requirements phases which involved different groups and resulted in two distinct, focused applications. The internal application is focused on dispatchers, supervisors, and decision makers actively participating in a snow event and monitoring the results of the snow operation). Highly flexible tool with detailed reports and basic analysis capability. The public application is focused on serving citizens with relevant information. Not snow operations people, so how do we present data to them in a manor that’s easy to understand? How do we streamline the process of displaying data? We came up with a “question” based workflow (1. What has been treated?, 2. What priority is my street?).

Dublin Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Dublin

Dublin Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Dublin

Dublin Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Dublin

Dublin Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Dublin

Dublin Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Dublin

Columbus Beta Software IT Infrastructure Internal Application Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Columbus Beta Software IT Infrastructure Internal Application Public Application At the time the internal project was underway ESRI’s geoevent extension was in Beta. We began working closely with ESRI to install and configure geoevent and received hotfixes during our initial application development. From a system architecture standpoint, the City has a robust set of server requirements for enterprise applications. Also, at the time of the initial project we had general hardware recommendations from ESRI but as an early adopter we took a conservative approach and worked the application through a development server, staging server, and a production server. Also important to again re-emphasize that we developed two different applications at different times focusing on the needs of internal staff and the general public.

Columbus Here’s a quick sample of the IT infrastructure. Key is Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Columbus Here’s a quick sample of the IT infrastructure. Key is -Development -Stage -Production -Public Production added later.

Columbus Internal WarriorWatch Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Columbus Internal WarriorWatch Discuss internal app. Inspired by existing C.O.M.B.A.T. application.

Columbus Internal Warrior Watch Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Columbus Internal Warrior Watch Discuss internal app. Inspired by existing C.O.M.B.A.T. application.

Columbus Public WarriorWatch (Activity Cache) Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Columbus Public WarriorWatch (Activity Cache) Discuss public application, again two different apps focused on two different users.

Columbus Public WarriorWatch (Priority Cache) Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Columbus Public WarriorWatch (Priority Cache) Discuss public application, again two different apps focused on two different users.

Dublin Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Dublin

Dublin Geoevent workflows Saving Data SQL Views Services Web Maps Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Dublin Geoevent workflows Filter trucks, detect sensor status, populate data table, update street table if activity Saving Data Only save what we really need Simplified Centerlines SQL Views Let the database do some heavy lifting for stats Services Stream services JSON websockets Web Maps Our size and data management approach let us solve the challenge in our own unique way.

Columbus Geoevent workflows Enterprise Data Performance Enterprise Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Columbus Enterprise Geoevent Python Geoevent workflows Enterprise Data Performance Our size and data management approach let us solve the challenge in our own unique way. During the data development we had to balance the performance of geoevent with our existing enterprise data architecture. The “operational data” such as street centerlines and snow maintenance zones are managed in the City’s enterprise geodatabase by public service GIS users. That layer is used by a number of other existing applications, Warrior Watch is just one more application that uses centerlines. During the data architecture phase, the number of centerlines in our service area required us to use a combination of Geoevent & python to deliver an “enriched data stream”. Additionally, file geodatabases were necessary to improve performance of the geo enrichment and caching process. While we consume the enterprise database as much as possible, we needed to use file geodatabase for processing which introduces additional data management in order to get the performance necessary. Warrior Watch Internal Public Python fGDB

Dublin Leaf Removal – trucks were out doing work Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Dublin Leaf Removal – trucks were out doing work Showed areas for improvement in GeoEvent Processes Sequencing Data storage vs pass through Single large process or separate processes Backup environment to turn on if needed User feedback during an event

Columbus Hired a company to perform load testing Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Columbus Hired a company to perform load testing Applied various tests from 500, 1000, to 2000 users (ramped up @ 0.07 seconds or on impulse). As a result, made several changes including: Additional Cores Additional Memory Modifying GeoProcessing Functions

Columbus Requirements Application Development Data Development Testing & Implementation Columbus

Conclusion and Steps Ahead (Snow Plow AVL / GIS is AWESOME!!!!) Decouple Event start/stop control & status updates Show trucks (last reported position) on public map Test integration with Waze Management Console Dashboard Metrics Simplify Data Processing