Norcross (Georgia, USA) – Looking towards the 2012 Olympic Games in London, British Transport Police is implementing ERDAS APOLLO 2009, a unified enterprise platform for managing and serving large volumes of geospatial data located and distributed across an organization.
British Transport Police is the national police force for the railways, providing a policing service to rail operators, their staff and passengers throughout England, Wales and Scotland. The Force is also responsible for policing the London Underground system, Docklands Light Railway, the Glasgow Subway, the Midland Metro tram system and Croydon Tramlink. The mission of British Transport Police is to provide a policing service which delivers a safe railway environment free from disruption and the fear of crime.
ERDAS APOLLO Image Manager is being implemented to store and share British Transport Police’s gridded data throughout the enterprise. Setting-up Open Geospatial Consortium and International Organization for Standardization (OGC/ISO) compliant web services, ERDAS APOLLO Server will securely catalog and deliver all the geospatial data of British Transport Police’s enterprise over the web. Infoterra, ERDAS’ authorized distributor in the UK and Ireland is providing ERDAS APOLLO, as well as ERDAS TITAN to British Transport Police.
“Previously, only 50% of British Transport Police’s imagery could be stored on a server. Additionally, retrieving these images was often problematic,” said Richard Smith, Force Information Manager, British Transport Police. "As a National Police Force, we needed a solution to store and distribute imagery securely and timely—ERDAS APOLLO provides such a solution, backed with ERDAS’ legacy of offering the most comprehensive OGC compliant, raster-based geospatial products.”
Utilizing ERDAS APOLLO, British Transport Police will build a transportation security monitoring system. ERDAS APOLLO has increased British Transport Police’s efficiency on their network and will enable interoperability to other national agencies, including multiple government organizations. This system will disseminate gridded data to remote locations quickly, regardless of bandwidth. ERDAS APOLLO will be used to integrate imagery in British Transport Police’s mapping solution. This imagery is delivered via Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) through their Intranet. ERDAS APOLLO provides access to imagery for Operational and Strategic Planning, Crime Analysis and Civil Contingency Planning.
Allowing cataloguing and serving geospatial data, ERDAS APOLLO Server implements the basic functionalities of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). ERDAS APOLLO implements comprehensive WMS, WFS, Web Coverage Service (WCS), Catalogue Service (CS-W), Web Map Context (WMC), ISO 19115/19139 standards and the ECW-P, JPEG 2000 and JPIP protocol. With a geographic security scale based model, ERDAS APOLLO Image Manager provides tools to specify globally masked security areas, authorized and unauthorized polygon access areas and map scale access, per user, per role. ERDAS APOLLO Image Manager supports any desktop or web-based OGC compliant client.
“ERDAS APOLLO allows British Transport Police to adequately prepare for the 2012 Olympic games, providing tools to efficiently store and quickly share massive amounts of gridded data throughout the enterprise, using various domain specific applications,” said Thomas Bayer, Vice President, Europe, Middle East and Africa, ERDAS. “This unique solution enables British Transport Police to centralize geospatial information metadata, with search, retrieve and disseminate capabilities.”
“The experience of the Infoterra team in managing and developing solutions to access large geospatial datasets has enabled the implementation of a secure and robust system based on ERDAS products, and within British Transport Police’s existing infrastructure” commented Phil Cooper, Software Business Manager for Infoterra Ltd. “Both the Infoterra and ERDAS teams look forward to supporting the information team at BTP over the next few years.”
For more information about ERDAS or its products and services, please call +1 770 776 3400, toll free +1 877 GO ERDAS, or visit www.erdas.com.
About ERDAS
ERDAS creates geospatial business systems that transform our earth’s data into business information, enabling individuals, businesses and public agencies to quickly access, manage, process, and share that information from anywhere. Using secure geospatial information, ERDAS solutions improve employee, customer and partner visibility to information, enabling them to respond faster and collaborate better. It also means better decision-making, increased productivity and new revenue streams. ERDAS is a part of the Hexagon Group, Sweden. For more information about ERDAS or its products and services, please call +1 770 776 3400, toll free +1 866 534 2286, or visit www.erdas.com.