Transend Networks Pty Ltd., Australia

Transend Establishes a Web-based Land Information Management System

electrical wires The Challenge:

In the Australian state of Tasmania, operating the electricity transmission system is not just about looking after transmission lines. Transend Networks Pty Ltd also manages the land (easements) on which this infrastructure sits. Easements are typically 50-60 meters in width with the transmission line in the center. The land still belongs to the property owner, but Transend has the right to place infrastructure on the easement, maintain it, manage vegetation, and ensure that any use of the land by the owner meets safety and operational requirements.

After disaggregation of Tasmania’s electricity industry, the state government set a deadline requiring Transend to record all easements on a map in order to retain these easement rights. This posed a challenge for Transend, as there was no land information management system in place. Easement information was only available in hard copy. Any spatial data that did exist was in multiple spatial formats.

The Project Objectives:

Establish a land information management system to record easement data, with the flexibility to expand the system for other uses and accept existing data in multiple formats
Publish easement data to the corporate intranet
Reduce work hours spent on answering easement inquiries

The Solution:

Transend set up a project team to develop a land information management system to map easement data electronically. Considering that most of the team had no previous experience in geographic information systems (GIS) and had a tight deadline to meet, it was important that the solution be user friendly. Intergraph’s GeoMedia suite of products fit the bill. GeoMedia Professional was used to manage the spatial data and GeoMedia WebMap Publisher to publish data to the corporate intranet, with minimum customization and programming. Intergraph technology was also selected for its open architecture and ability to further expand the system using spatial data in multiple formats.

This open architecture was particularly important in the beginning stages of the project, when existing data sets, such as the underlying raster basemap and data sets on roads, transmission lines, substations, and towers, were loaded into the spatial warehouse. Even though this data was in multiple formats, it could be imported and accessed without translation with the new system. Using hard copy documents, each easement was plotted and the easement documentation scanned and stored. To ensure the accuracy of the system, all data was double checked before being submitted on CD to the government’s recorder of titles.

Next the data was published to the intranet for all staff to access. This was especially important for employees who respond to inquiries from property owners and solicitors. For example, solicitors might want to know whether the properties their clients are about to buy contain easements, and property owners might want to check that they are within regulations to add new buildings, install dams, or perhaps plant orchards. Transend’s Transmission Lines Engineering Officer, Peter Johnson, explains how this inquiry process has been streamlined. “Previously, it might have taken us as much as two days to locate hard copy records and send information out to customers. Now the whole process takes less than 20 minutes, and information is immediately accessible on the intranet when we have custom queries, such as searching for an easement by property number. Our staff is very excited to be using a much more effective system and learning new skills. Of course management is pleased by the reduction in staff time needed to perform day-to-day inquiries.”

Future Plans:

Transend has numerous plans to extend the existing system beyond the land information management system. Linking with the asset management system is the next step. Rather than having to duplicate asset data in the GIS system, the information would be accessed in real time from the asset management system. Conversely, mapping functionality would be embedded into the asset management system to allow asset managers to view relevant data spatially.

There are also plans to add more data to the system, such as aerial photographs and external data such as forestry tracks.

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