City of Syracuse recognized for use of winter-weather operations tool

SYRACUSE — Esri, a company that focuses on location intelligence, presented two City of Syracuse departments with its Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award for their work on the city’s winter-weather operations tool released this past winter. 

The recognized departments are the Office of Accountability, Performance & Innovation (API) and Department of Public Works (DPW), Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh announced on Aug. 25. 

Selected from more than 100,000 eligible candidates, API and DPW were recognized for the departments’ “collaborative, innovative” use of mapping and analytics technology, as well as leadership in the field of government technology, at the annual Esri User Conference held this summer.

The City of Syracuse was one of 193 organizations and the only public-sector entity in New York state to be honored. Others recognized functioned in sectors that included commercial industry, defense, transportation, nonprofit work, telecommunications, and government, Walsh’s office said.

As one of the snowiest cities in the U.S., a large portion of Syracuse’s municipal operations involve managing the significant amounts of snow that blanket the city each year. The City of Syracuse began to look for new ways to use GIS and leverage spatial data and insights to make better government decisions and provide “efficient, effective and equitable” services for residents. 

After seeking guidance from Esri, the city implemented the winter-weather operations (WWO) product this past winter.

“As a city that embraces winter, Syracuse was excited to be the first to put Esri’s winter weather solution into action,” Walsh said. “By partnering with Esri to support this digital platform, it allows for our City operations team to focus more on snow response, and to monitor and adapt our snow operations to provide the most effective, efficient and equitable service to our constituents.”

The tool takes live data from sensors on plows, transforms it using real-time data analytics, feeds it into an online platform, and produces spatial analytics that aid in decision-making. 

The multifaceted product ultimately produces a live web map for residents to monitor where and when streets or sidewalks were plowed and gauge real-time conditions before heading out in snowy weather.

It also produces an internal fleet-management system for the DPW to track resources, plows, and illegally parked cars preventing plows form clearing streets. It also generates an operational dashboard for city leadership to measure performance and improve operational costs, Walsh’s office said.

“We are excited to take this technical solution and the knowledge gained to use GIS more strategically as an organization,” Conor Muldoon, deputy chief data and innovation officer of API, said. “The data-driven framework developed for this tool will be used to improve many other City services, such as optimizing our routes and introducing turn by turn navigation for the City’s snowplow fleet this winter.”

Founded in 1969 in Redlands, California, Esri focuses on geographic-information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping. It works to help customers “unlock the full potential” of data to improve operational and business results, per Walsh’s office. 

Esri software is deployed in more than 350,000 organizations globally and in over 200,000 institutions in the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofits, and universities.

Esri staff annually nominate hundreds of candidates from around the world for consideration, and Jack Dangermond, founder and president of Esri, selects the finalists. The SAG Awards are intended to demonstrate an appreciation for organizations using GIS technology to understand complex data and meet challenges around the world.    

SYRACUSE — Esri, a company that focuses on location intelligence, presented two City of Syracuse departments with its Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award for their work on the city’s winter-weather operations tool released this past winter. 

The recognized departments are the Office of Accountability, Performance & Innovation (API) and Department of Public Works (DPW), Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh announced on Aug. 25. 

Selected from more than 100,000 eligible candidates, API and DPW were recognized for the departments’ “collaborative, innovative” use of mapping and analytics technology, as well as leadership in the field of government technology, at the annual Esri User Conference held this summer.

The City of Syracuse was one of 193 organizations and the only public-sector entity in New York state to be honored. Others recognized functioned in sectors that included commercial industry, defense, transportation, nonprofit work, telecommunications, and government, Walsh’s office said.

As one of the snowiest cities in the U.S., a large portion of Syracuse’s municipal operations involve managing the significant amounts of snow that blanket the city each year. The City of Syracuse began to look for new ways to use GIS and leverage spatial data and insights to make better government decisions and provide “efficient, effective and equitable” services for residents. 

After seeking guidance from Esri, the city implemented the winter-weather operations (WWO) product this past winter.

“As a city that embraces winter, Syracuse was excited to be the first to put Esri’s winter weather solution into action,” Walsh said. “By partnering with Esri to support this digital platform, it allows for our City operations team to focus more on snow response, and to monitor and adapt our snow operations to provide the most effective, efficient and equitable service to our constituents.”

The tool takes live data from sensors on plows, transforms it using real-time data analytics, feeds it into an online platform, and produces spatial analytics that aid in decision-making. 

The multifaceted product ultimately produces a live web map for residents to monitor where and when streets or sidewalks were plowed and gauge real-time conditions before heading out in snowy weather.

It also produces an internal fleet-management system for the DPW to track resources, plows, and illegally parked cars preventing plows form clearing streets. It also generates an operational dashboard for city leadership to measure performance and improve operational costs, Walsh’s office said.

“We are excited to take this technical solution and the knowledge gained to use GIS more strategically as an organization,” Conor Muldoon, deputy chief data and innovation officer of API, said. “The data-driven framework developed for this tool will be used to improve many other City services, such as optimizing our routes and introducing turn by turn navigation for the City’s snowplow fleet this winter.”

Founded in 1969 in Redlands, California, Esri focuses on geographic-information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping. It works to help customers “unlock the full potential” of data to improve operational and business results, per Walsh’s office. 

Esri software is deployed in more than 350,000 organizations globally and in over 200,000 institutions in the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, nonprofits, and universities.

Esri staff annually nominate hundreds of candidates from around the world for consideration, and Jack Dangermond, founder and president of Esri, selects the finalists. The SAG Awards are intended to demonstrate an appreciation for organizations using GIS technology to understand complex data and meet challenges around the world.