News - Standard for location data completed
Standard for location services completed
October 2001
With over 200 organisations involved in the delivery of emergency services, it is hardly surprising that there are a number of different ways of describing where an emergency is happening. Different agencies compile their geospatial databases, indexes and maps differently, often from different sources. This has contributed to communication ambiguity about location, and interoperability difficulties.
For the past six months an inter-agency, multidisciplinary team lead by John Spittal and Richard Murcott at Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) have been working to improve the spatial definition of street address, place names, and the national road centreline network. The team comprised experts from LINZ, New Zealand Police, New Zealand Fire Service, Ministry for Civil Defence and Emergency Management, Statistics New Zealand, some Territorial Authorities, a University and a couple of private sector specialists. They have developed a comprehensive minimum standard for all the commonly used location identifiers needed for government and emergency services purposes. The draft standard for the ESA (Emergency Services and Government Administration) data has now been completed and will be presented to the Steering Committee for ratification early in November.
The benefits of this work extend far beyond the immediate needs of the emergency services. In all, some 50 statutes rely on geographical information and unique location identifiers, eg location of address, roads and intersections, named places or localities. The ESA data definitions can be used for many other aspects of government administration. Adoption of the standard will improve the location of assets, improve sharing information on the boundaries of local and electoral districts, where school zones are and so on.
The team aligned their characterization of these data with a set of international standards for the definition of geospatial data, developed over the last six years by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The project is an early adopter of these standards in New Zealand. Their use opens, in the longer term, opportunities for enhanced data quality, improved data sharing and interoperability.
The next challenge for the ESA programme will be to identify the changes required in existing Crown databases. This will be undertaken by benchmarking against the new standard.
Ultimately the data improvement programme promises benefits to a range of services where location data is vital, eg confidently and rapidly identifying location for an effective emergency response, or accurately locating dwellings within the correct electoral district for voter registration.
For more information contact John Spittal, jspittal@linz.govt.nz