RANCHO CUCAMONGA >> John Gillison can be more than 100 miles away from Rancho Cucamonga, but after a couple of taps on his iPad, the city manager is getting an operational picture of the city in real time.
The Executive Dashboard — an internal application on his iPad — allows Gillison to keep track of what is happening in key city departments such as fire, where he can pull up a map that provides in real time where emergency calls are located. He can tap any point on the map, and a pop-up window will provide important information about each incident. The technology also allows him to get daily counts for each response vehicle. There are similar functions with the Police Department and the city’s public works division.
This demonstrates just a fraction of how geographic information system technology has become part of the daily operations and functions for the city. Whether it’s the executive dashboard application or the Military Banner application, which allows anyone to find online exactly where any of 400 banners are located in the city, Gillison said new mapping software allows staff to analyze, query and display data to provide timely information needed to make better decisions.
“Every day we find new ways to use GIS to make Rancho Cucamonga a better place,” he said. “It saves us money and lets us do things more efficiently and lets us do things that we normally wouldn’t be able to do.”
The technology has not only become integral to city operations, the GIS department, comprised of about a dozen employees, handles a large number of map and data requests from all departments and even outside the walls of City Hall to include requests from residents, schools and businesses.
But the city has long been using Redlands-based geographic information system leader Esri’s mapping software to help make decisions to improve services for its residents.
Rancho Cucamonga first started using Esri software in 1985 and is User No. 61 — there are now hundreds of thousands users.
But it is what the city has done from the time it first started using GIS tools to now that has earned Rancho Cucamonga one of he highest honors in the industry.
It won the Presidents Award at Esri’s 35th annual User Conference in San Diego earlier this month. The award is selected by Esri’s president and cofounder, Jack Dangermond, and recognizes Rancho Cucamonga for its GIS work in planning and sustaining growth.
“The city of Rancho Cucamonga shines brightly through its innovative use of GIS applications,” Dangermond said. “Rancho Cucamonga has a dedicated enterprise GIS division that serves as a better way to maintain, manage and share geographic information throughout city departments, including code enforcement, engineering, police, fire, planning and community services.”
That’s not all, the Fire Department was also recognized with a Special Achievement in GIS — which is given only to about one-tenth of Esri users — at the conference. The city received the recognition in front of more than 15,000 attendees who came from more than 130 countries.
“They won the award of awards worldwide,” said Christopher Thomas, Esri’s director of government markets.
Rancho Cucamonga was not only one of the first users in the United States but in the entire country, he added. About 80 percent of local governments in the country use Esri technology, but most only use it in one or two departments — not all are citywide.
Cities such as Ontario, San Bernardino and Redlands use applications in nearly every discipline. Most of the jurisdictions use Esri technology for crime analysis, the planning departments use our technology for long range planning, Thomas said.
At the same conference, the San Bernardino County Department of Public Works received a Special Achievement in GIS Award.
In April 2013, the county’s Public Works developed new geographic mapping information on its website to assist the public in viewing county roads, flood control and solid waste facilities locations throughout the county.
And the city of Fontana has used GIS extensively in public works. A recent project entailed a major sign inventory, which saved considerable time and money, Thomas said.
Thomas said Esri and Rancho Cucamonga have had a great relationship over the past several decades, adding the city has been progressing at a phenomenal rate. It also means Esri teams up with the city to test new products before they are even publicly available.
“In ARCGIS for local government, which we build, we have 150 applications and Rancho Cucamonga has been instrumental in developing 16 of them,” Thomas said.
What has impressed Thomas the most about Rancho Cucamonga is the applications the city has created are all meant to improve services for residents.
“What they did wasn’t just build an application. They gave back to the residents and the greater community,” he said. “The city has been deserving of this award for a number of years.”
What sets the city apart from other municipalities using the technology was city staff from the start felt it was key that it be implemented across city departments, said Ingrid Bruce, Rancho Cucamonga’s GIS/special districts manager. She credits former City Manager Jack Lam whose vision was for all departments to benefit from the technology.
Bruce said Gillison and his executive staff continue to challenge her staff to think differently about how to use the software and technology in daily city operations.
City Uses
To a passer-by, seeing two city employees on their smartphones or tablets might not instill a lot of confidence that any work is being accomplished.
Chances are those two employees they see out in the street are Richard Favela and Robert Rossello with Public Works.
Using an internal GIS city application on either device, Favela and Rossello can pinpoint the location, identify the scope of work needed and even attach an image. Public Works staff works with a cloud-based map that allows them to collect data on sidewalk damage and imperfections, and in real time update the work cue for staff, improving turnaround and getting them fixed quicker.
“It really saves residents money. That faster response time using GIS lets us save tens of thousands of dollars because we can get these things fixed before somebody trips on them,” Gillison said.
Bruce said the technology allows for staff to have the mapping application to do inventory on things such as manholes or catch basins, trees and all the street signs.
“We have gone out and (used) GPS (to track) all the streetlights. We have 17,000 streetlights in the city, and we know every location (by) x-and-y coordinates,” she said.
The library just received a grant from the state to work with GIS to do so some mapping on where their patrons are and why they are using that particular branch. Staff can then use the information to tailor its services to library patrons, Gillison said.
“Fire uses it to collect and abate parcels that have overgrown weeds. We can actually, with half the people and half the cost of what the county used to charge us, use GIS to deliver that same service,” Gillison said.
During the Etiwanda Fire, the Fire Department relied on maps it had previously created to appropriately respond to the incident. The Fire Department preplanned what areas would need immediate structure defense during a wildfire, said Mike Costello, deputy chief of operations.
“We were able to help them with our maps, and it helped everybody get on the same page quickly in those early phases of the incident,” he said, referring to outside agencies that responded to the fire.
But the department also uses the technology in a broader sense as well.
“GIS helps us in our planning process, using the technology to analyze data. It also helps us with mapping and getting quicker to the calls. Lastly, it gives us intelligence to make tactical and strategic decisions at the incident command post,” he said.
Next phase
A new city application — Live, Work and Locate, — was unveiled at the conference. It focuses on economic development and will assist Rancho Cucamonga employees in attracting businesses and people to the city by highlighting new features such as traffic counts and existing businesses, Gillison said.
“GIS is mission critical to Rancho Cucamonga, not a few people or a couple departments, but everyone,” he said.
This internal, cloud-based portal allows all Rancho Cucamonga employees to access content whenever they need it. .
Most recently, the city launched Rancho Cucamonga Enterprise Geographic Information System, commonly known as REGIS. It provides maps, data and analysis to the fire and police departments as well as various other city departments. The city has now taken this program and started to offer it to smaller municipalities that don’t have the funds or staff to launch their own GIS services.
“What Rancho Cucamonga is doing is really innovative. We don’t hear cities that do this all the time,” Thomas said.
