GGP Geographic Information System Saves Public Money

Croydon, UK, 21 April 2010 – GGP Systems has announced a cost saving innovation that gives councils the ability to save millions of pounds of public money.  Aimed at local authorities that deliver a wide range of services and are struggling to reduce spending, the latest version of GGP’s Geographic Information System (GIS) allows centralised ‘datastores’ to be employed. This cuts out data duplication and with it the administrative resources required to maintain multiple datasets, improves access to accurate and up to date information and will ultimately deliver significant improvements in operational efficiency.

The newly released GGP GIS software offers the ability to store complex layers of mapped information in an international standard format defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Being able to directly read from and write to spatial databases means information can be effectively shared between departments and or other organisations, eliminating isolated data silos, reducing data duplicity and improving system interoperability, as well as enabling the joining up of diverse datasets to provide a richer information resource.

Centralisation of information is very important for councils looking to improve the way they spend their budget; accurate and comprehensive geographic information – in effect better street level local intelligence - allows councils to better target resources and avoid unnecessary wastage of public money.

“In order to maximise the potential of geographic information so that public organisations can spend their budgets more effectively, it is essential that large volumes of data can be securely stored and easily accessed,” commented Tim Maxwell founder and Managing Director of GGP Systems. “The integration of multiple spatial databases within GGP GIS will provide the foundation for deploying enterprise wide spatial information and facilitating either web based or wireless location based applications.”

Plymouth is just one example of a Council who has reported savings achieved through the use of GGP software. An estimated GBP 10 million has been saved from GIS and the LLPG (Local Land and Property Gazetteer – a centralised address database); money that has been re-invested in delivering better services to the citizens of Plymouth.

GGP Systems specialise in GIS and Gazetteer Management solutions specifically designed for the UK public sector. The South London based company provides easy to use software for the creation and management of corporate property databases, the ability to add and use a spatial element to all location based information and a range of solutions to meet t-Government directives and the drive towards shared services.

CONTACTS:

For further editorial information and photos, call Robert Peel on tel. +44 (0)1666 823306
Please fax colour separation requests to fax +44 (0)1666 824668
Product sales enquiries Prim Maxwell at GGP tel. +44 (0)20 8686 9887, e-mail: prim@ggpsystems.co.uk, www.ggpsystems.co.uk

NOTES TO EDITORS

About GGP GIS 2009
The latest version of GGP GIS represents a significant advance in open systems development. It allows geospatial data layer to be stored in a standardised format in an external spatial database.  That database can then be accessed by other systems, easing access to data so different systems can freely interoperate.

The standard GIS format
The OpenGIS® Simple Features Interface Standard (SFS) describes a common way for applications to store and access geospatial data in databases, so that the data can be used to support other applications. This standard is maintained by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), an international industry consortium of hundreds of companies, government agencies and universities participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface standards.

About Spatial Databases 
GGP GIS has the ability to read from and write into spatial databases and supports Microsoft’s SQL Server 2008, Oracle 9i, 10g and 11g (Locator or Spatial). GGP also supports Postgresql with PostGIS, which is well known in the Open Source community.

Spatial Data Storage allows much easier sharing of information across departments, eliminating proprietary-format data silos, data redundancy, and often the need to convert between vendors' formats. With data held in central servers, several departments across an organisation can share it using different applications. The mechanisms that keep data safe and secure (e.g. backup regimes, user accounts, permissions) can be maintained centrally, as dictated by corporate policy.

Spatial Data Managers also eliminate the need to develop separate interfaces to different systems. When standard storage formats are used, applications can be allowed access to spatial datasets maintained by other applications. This is the greatest benefit of interoperability.

Interoperability and GIS
Spatial Data Storage allows existing, separate datasets to be easily combined and cross-matched to provide access to more information. For example, an organisation that has geocoded gazetteer (address) data, and non-GIS relational datasets that have been address-matched against gazetteer, could create rich data views joining both GIS and non-GIS data. Data that was formerly stored as non-GIS tables can be mapped and standard GIS analysis tools like thematic mapping can provide further insight into this information.