Norcross (Georgia, USA) – Looking towards the 2012 Olympic Games in London, British Transport Police (BTP) has announced that it will be using ERDAS TITAN 2009, an online network for sharing and visualizing data.
BTP 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 BTP is to provide a policing service that delivers a safe railway environment free from disruption and the fear of crime.
ERDAS TITAN enables desktop publishing and visualization of data, all while retaining digital ownership rights. BTP will use ERDAS TITAN as a command/control solution to quickly and easily share data. BTP chose ERDAS TITAN because of its ease of use, providing a means for information to be shared rapidly and securely between desktop environments.
Recently, BTP also announced that it is implementing ERDAS APOLLO 2009, a unified enterprise platform for managing and serving large volumes of geospatial data located and distributed across an organization. BTP will use ERDAS APOLLO as their internal image management solution. ERDAS APOLLO was selected because of its speed, interoperability and standards based delivery.
During the Olympics, BTP will utilize standard data sets from ERDAS APOLLO and reactive data sets from ERDAS TITAN, gathered from various locations. These solutions will work together to rapidly share large volumes of data securely to the appropriate individuals and organizations. Infoterra Ltd., ERDAS’ authorized distributor in the UK and Ireland is providing ERDAS APOLLO and ERDAS TITAN to BTP.
BTP will implement an ERDAS TITAN Master Server and host several ERDAS TITAN GeoHubs throughout the country. An ERDAS TITAN Master Server allows an organization to implement a secure, isolated network for sharing data. The GeoHubs will enable BTP to create secure communities for permission-based data distribution between subscribers within that network.
“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, BTP. "As a National Police Force, we needed solutions to store and distribute geospatial information securely and timely—ERDAS TITAN and ERDAS APOLLO provide such solutions, backed with ERDAS’ legacy of offering the most comprehensive OGC compliant, raster-based geospatial products.”
Utilizing ERDAS TITAN and ERDAS APOLLO, BTP will build a transportation security monitoring system. ERDAS APOLLO has increased BTP’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 BTP’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.
“ERDAS TITAN and ERDAS APOLLO allow BTP to adequately prepare for the 2012 Olympic games, providing tools to efficiently store and quickly share massive amounts of geospatial information between desktops and throughout the enterprise, using various domain specific applications,” said Thomas Bayer, Vice President, EMEA, ERDAS. “This unique solution enables BTP 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, 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.