GIS/Addressing safety issues
Emergency responders in Aston Township, Pa., are reaching their destinations more quickly as a result of the town’s efforts to reorganize addresses in residential areas. The town used geographic information system (GIS) software to complete the project, plotting the locations of all residences and assigning addresses in sequence.
As in many older, established communities, in-fill housing developments have sprung up within older sections of Aston Township, wreaking havoc with the address numbering system that never was revised. Newly assigned addresses — such as 520A and 520B — more closely resembled apartment numbers than single-family residences. On one street, the letters added to existing addresses ran almost all the way through the alphabet.
The difficulty was particularly critical in the case of emergency responders — police, ambulances and fire trucks — that took valuable time searching for homes because the addresses did not follow a logical sequence. In one case, an ambulance was delayed in responding to a call because the driver was searching for an apartment complex that matched the address rather than for a single-family dwelling. On another occasion police responded to the wrong location.
Mail delivery problems also occurred, and, although they are less urgent than emergency responses, they had a ripple effect. In some instances, insurance policies were canceled because the premiums were not paid on time.
The combination of problems became troublesome enough for the Township Board of Commissioners to take remedial action. In August 2000, the board asked the local fire marshal and engineer to work with the postmaster in re-addressing the township.
“What had been a nuisance and an inconvenience for a number of years was now becoming a serious threat to public health and safety,” says Thomas Morgan, Aston Township fire marshal. “It was clear that something had to be done to make our address system sequenced in a comprehensible manner, and we had at our disposal the basic material needed to get us started.”
Aston Township previously had developed a GIS using ArcMap-ArcView software from Redlands, Calif.-based ESRI. The GIS contained the existing addresses, making it possible to target the sections of the 7-square-mile town that needed attention. New York-based Vollmer Associates, the township engineer, prepared exhibits showing the existing addresses on maps, and the fire marshal and the postmaster began using the exhibits to develop a new numbering system.
Working slowly, one street at a time, the team re-assigned addresses to homes and sent notices to homeowners about the changes. For several months after new addresses were issued, homeowners posted dual addresses to gradually adopt the changes. Once addresses were assigned, they were updated in the township GIS as well as in the county 911 system to assure that emergency responders had the most accurate information. Most of the addresses in the town have changed as a result of the project, with only one street remaining to finish.
Besides helping the team locate addresses, the GIS software also was critical in helping town officials analyze the likelihood of more development, permitting sufficient addresses to be held in reserve. Officials queried the GIS database to find lot sizes and zoning requirements to determine the possibility of subdivisions and adjust the addressing sequence accordingly to allow for future in-fill development.
In 2002, the township created a Web-enabled system to make the GIS available to residents. Township officials hope to equip all volunteer fire companies with wireless laptops in the near future so the fire fighters can search for properties en route and display maps of the locations on the computer screen along with the locations of hydrants and other utilities.
“The use of the GIS will provide us with a logical, distinct address-numbering system in all areas of the township,” Morgan says. “[It will] provide the residents of the community with improved life safety and the potential to affect a better general quality of life.”