A Real World Example
Here's a real world example of the public benefit of sharing geospatial data.
Delaware's 911 operators now have the advantage of Phase II wireless compliance; when people call for help on cell-phones those phones that are up-to-date now feed a fairly accurate lat/long to the 911 system.
That's nice, and eventually it will be the case across the nation.
The example I cite, though, is slightly buried in the Delaware News Journal story on the announcement of Phase II: System pinpoints 911 cell-phone callers.
I first heard this story a few weeks back from the manager of the Kent County 911 Center. A boat captain was lost on a dark night, trying to find his way into a harbor from the Delaware Bay.
He called 911 on his cell phone. The Phase II system popped an icon of his call onto a map screen that includes both the recently updated National Hydrography Dataset and Delaware's 2002 false-color infrared orthophotography. Using that data, a 911 operator who is also an avid boater, was able to talk the captain into port.
The newspaper story tells that tale of seafaring adventure without the lavish praise for geospatial data that I would have heaped, but it does include a telling photo of a 911 operator's screen.
The 911 staff were impressed with the orthos when we first added them to their screens last year. Now that they have accurate call-location information, though, they have become evangelists for accurate, high-resolution, and up-to-date geospatial data.
Delaware's 911 operators now have the advantage of Phase II wireless compliance; when people call for help on cell-phones those phones that are up-to-date now feed a fairly accurate lat/long to the 911 system.
That's nice, and eventually it will be the case across the nation.
The example I cite, though, is slightly buried in the Delaware News Journal story on the announcement of Phase II: System pinpoints 911 cell-phone callers.
I first heard this story a few weeks back from the manager of the Kent County 911 Center. A boat captain was lost on a dark night, trying to find his way into a harbor from the Delaware Bay.
He called 911 on his cell phone. The Phase II system popped an icon of his call onto a map screen that includes both the recently updated National Hydrography Dataset and Delaware's 2002 false-color infrared orthophotography. Using that data, a 911 operator who is also an avid boater, was able to talk the captain into port.
The newspaper story tells that tale of seafaring adventure without the lavish praise for geospatial data that I would have heaped, but it does include a telling photo of a 911 operator's screen.
The 911 staff were impressed with the orthos when we first added them to their screens last year. Now that they have accurate call-location information, though, they have become evangelists for accurate, high-resolution, and up-to-date geospatial data.
posted by Mike Mahaffie at 9:37 AM
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