Map Centric Data Collection

MARTA’s intention is to locate, inspect, and inventory all confined spaces on its operating property throughout metro Atlanta. This will enable operations and maintenance to work more safely and efficiently on its crucial assets. Prior to Urban GIS’ involvement, MARTA was using paper-based forms combined with collecting waypoints from a handheld GPS unit with poor accuracy and improper technique. Those observed coordinates were manually entered into forms and later transcribed to excel sheets and other formats. No defined schema was in place to ultimately move this into their GIS. Many opportunities for errors were present in their workflow and involved tedious data processing. Project status and mission planning was difficult for key stakeholders to keep apprised of.

Urban GIS introduced a map-based workflow leveraging Collector combined with ArcGIS Online for field data collection and project management. We developed and implemented an appropriate schema and enabled photo collection for every confined space inspected. We overlayed multiple background layers from CAD, tax assessors, aerial imagery and other data for reference purposes. Offline editing was enabled to allow for collection indoors and underground. A high-accuracy GPS was introduced, and field members were properly trained on its use. Our team also converted many CAD files to GIS for inspection purposes.

Stakeholders can now view progress in real-time on web maps and see top line metrics through Dashboard. Errors in workflow have been drastically reduced and work is done much more efficiently. Our ArcGIS online web solution is now the single source of truth for the entire project and the effort has been a success.