Friday 17 April 2009

InstantAtlas E-Bulletin on GLA, Geo-demographics and Crime Mapping

In this posting we review worked carried out by the Greater London Authority (GLA) who recently published their annual London Borough Stat-Pack as interactive maps using InstantAtlas. We take a look at new implementations of InstantAtlas for analysing and mapping crime statistics with South Yorkshire Police and Thames Valley Police, who have both adopted InstantAtlas as an affordable public crime mapping solution.

With increasing interest in social marketing and geo-demographics we present some recent work done in partnership with the Norfolk Data Observatory on their Lifestyle profile reports based on the CACI Acorn data product.

Visit our online LIS Resource Pack to help new and prospective clients with their decision to implement a Local Information System. We have collected all current LIS resources and added two new webinars in December by Norfolk County Council and Brighton and Hove Council.

David Carey
Marketing Manager

david.carey@geowise.co.uk

Featured Applications

Greater London Authority

The Greater London Authority (GLA) recently took advantage of its relationship with SASPAC, the UK Census analysis software specialists, to publish their annual 'London Borough Stat-pack' report as interactive maps.

The Stat-pack is produced by Data Management & Analysis Group (DMAG) and provides a wide range of borough level data across different themes as a leaflet and accompanying CD.

Gareth Piggott of DMAG says "We found the software easy to use, and the fact that we were able to customise the template gave us the freedom to present it exactly how we wanted it. InstantAtlas met the requirements for the project exactly and we intend using it again for web-based projects this year."

For more information visit:

http://www.saspac.org/StatPack09/

UK Crime Mapping

South Yorkshire Police and Thames Valley Police have both adopted InstantAtlas as an affordable public crime mapping solution to make a range of area-based crime statistics available through their web site in a visual and interactive manner. This also meets their obligations defined by UK Central Government - the Home Office - to make performance-related data on recorded crime for specific crime types available through interactive, online maps for the first time.

In line with Home Office guidance, the statistics have been selected to make them as easy to understand as possible. The report layout has been designed to allow users to get a cross-cutting view on the status of recorded crime across key crime types for any area of interest.

The values have been classified into a standard set of categorical classes relating the level of crime in any one area with that in the police authority area as a whole. These classes are also graded using a widely recognised convention (for example A to E in the case of South Yorkshire).


In parallel with our work with Police Forces, GeoWise has been working closely with Amethyst (www.amethyst.gov.uk), the CDRP for Cornwall, to update their online crime reporting capability. Their new atlas - see http://www.amethyst.gov.uk/crime.htm - is aimed at a wide range of users including staff within the local partnership and also those coming to the site externally.

All these crime reports are based on the InstantAtlas Performance Analysis template with minor enhancements, for example to add a postcode search function.

There are a range of UK and international examples of crime related work available through the Public Safety theme of the showcase section of the InstantAtlas web site.

Geo-demographics and Customer Insight

As part of the LARIA event on Social Marketing & Segmentation (see below) we did some work with the Norfolk Data Observatory team to enhance their presentation of geo-demographics. This included some enhancements to their Lifestyle profile reports based on the CACI Acorn data product. These reports are available for all their geographies (see example for Norwich Childrens Service Cluster area).

We also created an interactive geo-demographic profile allowing users to explore multiple areas (see screenshot and live example) and rapidly understand the likely composition of the resident population. We then used this profile atlas to help create a simple map based report, which classifies of all wards into a custom set of 6 classes based on Acorn Categories.

Product News

NEW InstantAtlas 6


InstantAtlas 6 for Desktop and Server is due for imminent release. To give you a taste of what is to come we have provide a list of some of the new key features for both applications.

New Desktop 6 Features include (not confirmed):-

* Improved Performance: Will load faster and can handle more data

* Improved handling of decimal points

* User Controlled Layer transparency

* Ability to switch base layers within one atlas

* Support for custom class breaks

* Colour coded data table

* Improved chart labels

New Server 6 Features include (not confirmed):-

* Completely re-written in Microsoft .NET.

* Support for storing data in remote databases

* Complete Multi-language support

* New improved user interface

* Support for calculated ratios from existing indicators

* Improved profiles including display as PDF

* New Server Publisher module allowing streaming of vector data from ArcGIS Server


If you would like to be alerted of the new release dates please email me at marketing @geowise.co.uk and I will send you a notification.

www.instantatlas.com


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