40 October 2007 | GEOconnexion International Magazine

ENRIC RODELLAS, DIRECTOR OF THE MAPDEPARTMENT AT THE PORT OF BARCELONA,EXPLAINS HOW IMPORTANT GIS IS TOEFFICIENT OPERATION OF THE PORT

GEOSPATIAL AWARENESS INPORT OF BARCELONA

The Harbour Authority of Barcelona (APB) is the public body thatadministers the Port of Barcelona, one of the main ports of Spain. TheAPB was the first Spanish port to use GIS technology for managingtheir territory, a decision taken in 1991, leading to the very detailedand high quality cartography now used for port planning. The basicGIS tool chosen in 1993 was Smallworld.

ObjectivesWhen the port decided to use GIS, the following objectives wereestablished and are in effect even today:• to represent the balance of investments and expenses in the

territory (financial accountability),• to have a tool for management and maintenance of assets,• to know territorial characteristics for decision making (Decision

Support Systems),• to facilitate territorial management tools for the people in other

departments, and• to integrate the GIS with legacy sytems, such as the IBM AS/400.

The Main ToolsSeveral GIS and CAD tools are used for geospatial management.Smallworld is the main spatial management tool on which applicationshave been developed. Its functionalities for data modelling and manage-ment of alternatives and versions allow us to manage the quality of ourgeospatial data. For designing new infrastructures, CAD systems fromBentley Microstation and Autocad are used. Lately we have incorporatedSimport of mcrit.com and Manifold.net for foreland and hinterlandstudies. Lizardtech compression technology is used for publishing rasterimages and Safe Software (FME) is used to exchange data formats

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between systems. Perl and Python are used forbatch processing and web services. In the future,web servers such as UMN Mapserver and OGC’sWMS and WFS services will be used.

OrganizationThe Map Department maintains the basecartography at 1:500, which serves asgeoreference data for the other Portdepartments. This deparment is responsible formaintenance of about 200 geographic objectsand for the updates of the orthophotos. The GISApplications Developent Department developsthe final user applications, maintains coherenceof data models, and supports CAD and GISusers. The Works, Concessions, Security andDockage Departments manage their own layersor objects / features and associated data bases.

A User, a View, an ApplicationGIS applications used in APB includeManagement of Maps, Management ofConcessions, Management of Emergencies,Works Management and Management ofDocking. Other back office applications providesome remote services and other GIS and CADtools are used without customization oradditional programming. All the applicationsrequired data modelling, customization dataviews, development of applications inSmallworld, specific definitions for plotting,management of user profiles and connectionswith APD legacy databases.

Port PlanThis is the application for maintaining basiccartography and information on rear area(hinterland) nets on a scale of 1:500, whichprovides a georeference for the other applica-tions. In real time, it links to the internal WMSservices of the Institut Cartográfic to providecartography of the external zones of the Portand serves orthophoto maps internally. Datamodelling is similar to that for an urban zone,but with some specialized data types, such ascranes, bollards, wharves, etc.

Management of ConcessionsThis is the application for management of portareas. It emphasizes topological norms for theareas that delimit the concessions within theport. A set of user tools helps - and enforces -maintenance of topological coherencebetween the concessions. It also supports thesynchronization procedures with legacydatabases. That is to say, topological coherenceis maintained, i.e. at any time, all the port area isperfectly covered by polygons, without overlapor holes - easy to say but not so easy toimplement!

Management of EmergenciesIn a port where modal interchange of merchan-dise occurs, there is much risk tied to the typeof merchandise, the volume stored in depositsand the continual truck traffic. For that reason,the Control Centre has an impressive GIS

application that allows the controller to (a) doforecasting, executing models of simulation offlights, explosions, fires and accidents and (b) tomanage the emergency, according to charac-teristics of the incident, type of dangerousgoods and volume, to calculate the affectedareas and possible toxic cloud evolution, tolocate the affected companies, and to give fastwarning by different systems.

Works ManagementThe Harbour Authority is the public administra-tion providing the port’s basic infrastructure, e.g.docks, wharves, highways, terminals, rail lines,etc. - 90% of the APB budget is dedicated toinfrastructure creation. Because of this, as wellas the CAD tools used in planning infrastructureprojects, all the projects are also referenced intime and space to better understand andexplain the investments.

Management of DockingOther competencies of the Harbour Authorityinclude management for docking the ships.This GIS application provides a managementtool that is important for planning because ofthe high demand on dock space. The timedimension and management of the authoriza-tion phases for docking permission are keyissues.

Basic principlesFor both daily work and annual projects, princi-ples applying to work procedures andobjectives can be summarised as follows.

Quality of the cartographic bases.When we publish geographic data, we payattention to location precision (10 cm in XY, 13cm in Z), the origin of the associated attributes,the completeness of the data layer, the date of

capture and editing and the frequency ofupdate (daily). We apply two profiles to thisquality standard - one for public spacesmanaged directly by APB (more precision andmore detail in attributes) and one for theconcession spaces (less precision and lessattribute detail).

Historical registry. No GIS exists with thecapacity to adequately manage the temporaldimension of geospatial data. As a publicadministration, we need to know “How was thePort at a certain date?”. This is why we takeadvantage of the object-oriented programmingcapabilities of Smallworld and management ofalternatives. We register the changes that takeplace for each object, so that we have thecapacity to see the Port at a certain date, and inaddition to know the changes that any organi-zation of the GIS has undergone. In parallel, wekeep “snapshots” from the cartography whenev-er important changes are made.

Registering and presenting editing work andservices. One of the most thankless tasks forthe GIS is editing data. Those responsiblecustomarily do not know the volume of thiswork. So we publish information on the editingactivities, access to the data and use of theapplications. For example, in 2006, 61129elements were inserted, published or erased;the applications were accessed by 80 users whowere connected for 34000 hours.

Facilitating access to geoinformation. Thecapture and editing of basic map data are doneto facilitate work of other departments whodesign and plan, do maintenance, conductoperations, take care of of security, etc. Thus, wefacilitate access to the geoinformation bymeans of several systems for direct use of the

Smallworld application for editing and consulting GI in Port of Barcelona

42 October 2007 | GEOconnexion International Magazine

applications and export of data to otherformats.

Recording application use. All the APB GISapplications register the time of use, thefunctions used, and any failures. We haveimmediate knowledge when an applicationerror takes place and can effect immediatecorrection. Thus we are able to guarantee therobustness of an application in the first monthsof implementation, and the user perceives thatwe manage correct operation of the program.The application use registry also provides uswith use statistics.

Distrust ‘kidnapping’ of our data by propri-etary systems. The most important thing inour work is the data. All the proprietarycomputer systems tend to keep users captive intheir specific implementation environments.One way to do this in CAD and GIS systems isby locking the user’s data into proprietaryformats from which it may be very difficult toexport them to open formats. Even successiveversions of the same product may not fullyreconise or be able to use prior data created inan earlier version. For that reason, all GIS data inthe port has a copy in object oriented, ASCIIformat, containing such geometry as the attrib-utes and relations between objects. This hasbeen our approach since 1993.

To publicly communicate access to productsand services of the Map Department.Information is communicated to users via aninternal newsletter both periodically and whenthere is an important update of maps, when anew cartographic product (small-scale general-purpose map, orthophoto map) is created,when a new service starts (e.g. a webservice) orwhen a GIS project is completed.

To elaborate cartographic products. The GISis the vehicle for interaction between users andthe computer. Paper products are oftennecessary, for purposes not anticipated in theoriginal applications. On many occasions, whatthe user wants is not available from a standardappliation, but a particular view of the port onpaper.

Thinking about the futureThe Map Department listens to the needs ofour users and monitors the evolution of the GISmarket, standards from the Open GeospatialConsortium - and Internet leader, Google. In thefuture, we will implement further OGC-compli-ant WMS and WFS services for accessingapplications via the intranet and the web,offering more data in GIS formats, especially via

Google Earth. We need to incorporate 3Dmodels for some buildings, warehouses,wharves. We need to implement temporalviews in all GIS applications, for example SIMILETimeline applied to GIS. More participation isneeded regarding geospatial data outside theport itself, e.g. statistical data, connectivitycalculations, transport costs, etc. Port cartogra-phy needs official recognition, for example withthe principles of the EU’s INSPIRE Directive. The70,000 annual data updates should be availableautomatically in the official cartography ofCatalunya, Spain and Europe. Better, bi-lateralcommunication is required with and betweenall stakeholders.

ConclusionTechnology determines the capacity to serveusers and GIS applications. The author believethat choosing Smallword in the 90’s was asuccess, but has doubts about continuing withversion 4 of Smallworld. Today, we must havetools that are more flexible than Smallworld,available for some simpler users (who need todevelop to their own models or thematicmaps), as well as tools for consulting GI,especially on the web. As a public administra-tion, we must make our geospatial informationmore accessible, which is why the implementa-tion of OGC-compliant services is our immedi-ate goal. The strong geospatial activity inCatalunya led by the Institut Cartogràfic deCatalunya and the association ACTIG created aspace in which to learn and to share ideasbetween the professionals of the sector.

Article by Enric Rodellas, geographer and Directorof the Map Department of the Harbour Authority,Port of Barcelona, where he directs data captureand editing of all cartography for the Port, GISproject development and CAD user support. He is aMember of ACTIG, the Catalan Association ofGeospatial Information Technologies.

Web application to access historical aerial photos and orthophoto maps

Smallworld application for docking management