Users can access aerial images of the city.
The service area function of CityMaps identifies the services areas for any address, providing links to maps and websites for the service areas.
The CityMaps web services provide a centralized set of geographic services that enable city agencies to embed maps and geographic services in their websites and software without requiring trained staff, software and equipment in every agency.
Client: City of Philadelphia – Division of Technology (formerly Mayor’s Office of Information Services)
Challenge: As part of the City’s Enterprise GIS Strategic Plan, the former City of Philadelphia MOIS - GIS Services Group wanted to extend the development of flexible and extensible ways to provide geographic data and spatial analysis services to all City departments including both GIS divisions and traditional application developers that have not yet been able to take advantage of the City’s spatial data assets.
Solution: Azavea proposed, designed, and developed a set of geographic processing Web Services that exchange requests and responses using industry standard XML protocols. Using these services as building blocks, Azavea then developed an application, an advanced address geocoding system, to demonstrate how individual services can be chained together into new software.
Outcomes: The CityMaps Web Services now respond to more than 50,000 requests per day and service many departments that never thought they would use GIS including: police warrants and prison release data processing, street pothole location, community services, and tax revenue lookups. The services include spell checking and address parsing, address geocoding, nearest facility and service area locators, map generation, and PDF generation services. The ability for geographically based services to work with systems across the city has already helped City organizations save time and money, and with CityMaps Web Services, more will be empowered to meet their specific challenges.