November 17, 2005
By Buhle Makabane
THE public can now get access to the city's spatial information following the launch of a new map website. Johannesburg's corporate geographic information systems unit launched the website on Wednesday, 16 November.
This coincides with the annual International Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Day, held on the Wednesday of the National Geographic Society's Awareness Week, which runs from 13 to 19 November. This one-day map exhibition was held at the Metropolitan Centre in Braamfontein.
GIS is a technology that is used to view and analyse data from a geographic perspective. The day is used to explain to the public how the technology works.
"The event aims to highlight the innovative technology that uses geography to bring countless benefits to the world," says City of Joburg's media liaison officer, Nthatisi Modingoane.
An online presentation of the new website was given by Joburg's GIS director, Marcelle Hattingh.
Hattingh said the website would help people who wanted to get access to the city's maps. These include stand numbers, street addresses, townships, agricultural buildings, wards, regions, roads and points of interest, such as shopping centres, libraries and museums.
Information available on the site includes property information, basic zoning, points of interest, customised maps, aerial photographs, inner city and business nodes.
In addition, a fax information service is available for regular clients.
The website has two levels of access - free and subscription. Users pay for the subscription service. Free services include basic information on stand numbers, street addresses, township names and basic zoning.
Subscription services offer full resolution aerial photography, detailed zoning, proposed townships and customised mapmaking tools. Information can be downloaded for an additional cost.
Individuals can either pay R100 monthly for subscription services or R1 000 yearly. Companies can pay R500 monthly or R5 000 yearly.
Online payments are possible through a secure Absa bank website. Once the payment is processed the user gets access to the online maps.
According to the website, credit card details are only processed through Absa and are not entered in or stored in the City of Johannesburg's system.
For offline payments, deposits can be made through a bank or to the Council Cashier. The cashier is at the corporate GIS offices on the 8th Floor, A Block, Metropolitan Centre, Braamfontein.
About 56 866 addresses are available on the site, including in Ivory Park. Outstanding areas that still need to be captured comprise 80 000 street addresses in Orange Farm and 120 000 in Soweto.
Stand data captured to date numbers 59 523 and the total number of townships captured is 400, along with 108 proposed townships.
GIS for local governments is a computer technology that combines geographic data of the locations of manmade and natural features on the earth's surface and other types of information to generate visual maps and reports.
The free online service is available on the Joburg City website, under e-services. Click on online maps.
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