Louisiana Business Plan for

Statewide Address Management

Craig Johnson, AICP Louisiana Geographic Information Center, Baton Rouge, LA

Kathrine Cargo, GISP, ENP Orleans Parish Communications District, New Orleans, LA

Partners

Federal Geographic Data Committee

(FGDC) awarded a grant in 2011 to fund

the development of a Business Plan

Louisiana Chapter NENA

Louisiana Geographic Information

Center

Orleans Parish Communication District

Why develop a statewide address

management plan now?

Next Generation 911 requirements – new NENA and FGDC addressing standards have been developed.

Louisiana Broadband Initiative - LAGIC is working with the Division of Administration to collect address data from local governments (primarily Communication Districts) to help in identifying broadband coverage.

GOHSEP is also a partner DOA’s statewide effort to collect addresses for the Broadband Project

Who are the stakeholders for

accurate address data?

Communication Districts (911 Administrative Organizations)

Louisiana Assessors

Registrar of Voters

Economic Development Agencies

Homeland Security & Emergency Preparedness Agencies

Local and State Government Agencies

Why are accurate address points

important?

Demand for location accuracy is increasing

at all levels of government and the

private sector:

Emergency response

On-line map services like; Mapquest Google

maps and Bing

Delivery of government services

Routing and telematics (UPS, OnStar)

Address accuracy issues:

Increased use of cell phones increases the

difficulty of getting an exact location for a call

for service.

Limited accuracy for Wireless calls

Limited service in many rural areas

Not all cell phones (hand sets) have GPS

Cell Tower Triangulation (network) issues

How many towers in your area?

Where are they located?

NextGen 911 will bring an increased

need for locational accuracy

According to the Federal Communication

Commission, NextGen 911 will require much

greater locational accuracy then was required

in Phase II.

The MSAG, the ALI database and the Parish

GIS database will all need to be

synchronized

Address standardization will be required to

ensure interoperability and data sharing

Address Maintenance Survey Goal

Task

Survey all Communication Districts, NENA

members and non-NENA members

Goal

Better understand the constraints faced by

Communications Districts in meeting their

goal of protecting the public, including the

financial, organizational and technical

issues

The Address Maintenance Survey

developed with input from LaNENA

57/64 Parishes (90%) responded (June-

October, 2011)

Survey designed to be completed in less

than 10 minutes, 21 questions

On-line survey link was sent to every

Communication District in the state

If we didn’t hear from you, we followed

up with a phone call.

Goals: Address Maintenance Survey

Identify the current status of 911

Addressing in Louisiana

Determine the requirements of address

creators and address users

Use that information to develop a

Business Plan that meets state and local

government needs

In coordination with LaNENA, develop a

plan that incorporates “best practices”

Parish responded

Parish did not respond

Parish Response to the

Address Maintenance Survey

The Address Maintenance Survey

developed with input from LANENA

Survey divided into four sections to assess:

Current practices

Organizational ability to manage addresses

How Automated Location Information (ALI) is

maintained

Parish preparation for Next Gen 911

Survey Results: Current practices

72% of responding Communication

Districts are the addressing authority for

their parish

Other Addressing authorities included:

Assessors

Permits department

Planning departments

Streets/Public Works

GIS Departments

Survey Results: Current practices

For the 28% of communication districts that are not the primary addressing authority:

44% receive notification of address changes via email

38% receive notification of address changes via handshake agreement with the addressing authority for their parish

Survey Results: Current practices

58% of responding parishes use address

ranges, and the remainder use address points or a combination of points and ranges to locate 911 calls for service

47% have a geographic coordinate associated with each address, but don’t rely on points exclusively for locating 911 calls for service

Survey Results: Current practices Address Point Placement

Phase 1 accuracy

Phase 2 accuracy

Organizational ability to manage

addresses

56% have an addressing ordinance to

ensure a standardized addressing

process

25% said they had no ordinance

19% weren’t sure

Organizational ability to manage addresses – Address maintenance

Organizational ability to manage

addresses – Update frequency

How Automated Location Information

(ALI) is maintained

Of those who have address point data,

30% of respondents have synchronized

their address point data with their ALI

data

With NextGen 911, the ALI database will

evolve into the GIS locational database.

How ALI is maintained –

Synchronization frequency

Parish preparation for NextGen 911

57% say their highest priority for NextGen 911 implementation is increased funding

Second priority: NENA and industry need to agree on common communication standards

Next highest priority is increased bandwidth and improved broadband capacity

Parish preparation for NextGen 911

Parish preparation for NextGen 911

Some require more information on the

costs and benefits of transitioning to

NextGen 911:

Hardware requirements

Costs

Training needs

Best practices

General Observations from

the Survey Results

The proposed business plan should include a

phased approach for address maintenance

implementation to account for the widely

varying levels of Parish capability

Address issues consistent throughout the state

include:

Need for funding

Need for technical assistance

Need for standardized address data

Progression from Survey Results to an

Address Maintenance Business Plan

The Plan shall be easy to implement by a non-GIS/non-technical professional

The Plan should provide cost-effective solutions to address database issues

The Plan should facilitate the use of address data standards

For ease of implementation, the Plan should employ web-based tools

Next steps – Establish the Plan

methodology

Launched a Pilot Addressing Project in West

Carroll Parish

Developing a Business Plan according to the

FGDC template

Distribute draft Plan for review and comment

Gather feedback and incorporate comments

Make recommendations and seek support for

the Plan from the LaNENA membership and

other Communication Districts.

Addressing Pilot Project – West

Carroll Parish

Last fall, LAGIC launched a pilot project in West

Carroll Parish to see how effectively address

assignment could be automated

Created an MOU to define project responsibilities

Assessed existing primary data and resources

within the Parish

Addressing Pilot Project – Parish’s

role

Convert address data to digital form, Ex: MS Excel,

Access

Parse data into separate data types using

standard address system (enabling the use of

pull down menus)

Create a unique ID for each address record

including parish or municipal census codes

Keep address data current and maintain

backups.

Addressing Pilot Project – LAGIC’s

role

•The pilot used a combination of hi-

resolution aerial imagery, Pictometry

oblique imagery, and Google Street View

to locate businesses and residences

•Parish-supplied databases included their

Master Address File (MAF), the parish

addressing ordinance, and other data.

•Geocode each address record and create a

unique Lat/long for each record.

•Place address points on rooftops using high

resolution aerial imagery, streetview etc.

•Perform ground truthing in coordination with

local government

•Desired result is >5% of all geocoded

addresses would require field checking.

Addressing Pilot Project – LAGIC’s role

Addressing Pilot Project - Results

The results of the pilot project were:

Structures were accurately addresses

approximately 95% of the time from the office

at LSU

The remaining 5% of the parish structures

required a field check to confirm/assign the

correct address

Confirmation of those addressing techniques

that proved most effective

Tools for Address Maintenance

Web based address management

tools

LAGIC developed a Flex application that

allows adding, deleting or modifying

an address point using an internet

browser. No GIS software is required.

Additional tools for address collection

Field check tools

LAGIC developed a data

collection tool for the

I-pad. We used the

I-pad because of its

light weight, screen

size and built in

wireless network

Managing addresses in the Future

Bringing about the changes required to

manage addresses will involve changes

in the way we all do business

Developing and instituting data

standards will require consensus

Managing address data on a

regional/statewide basis will require

coordination and assigned roles and

responsibilities

Questions?

Craig Johnson, Director

LA Geographic Information

Center

cjohnson@lsu.edu

Kathrine Cargo, GIS/Mapping

Coordinator

kcargo@911nola.org