Esri Ireland’s digital mapping transforms the delivery of public services for Wicklow County Council

Esri Ireland, the market leader in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), has announced that it has helped Wicklow County Council to migrate their geospatial data and GIS services to the cloud, improving internal processes and transforming the delivery of public services.

For more than 25 years, Wicklow County Council has used Esri’s ArcGIS solutions in areas ranging from local development planning to highways maintenance. Now, with its ArcGIS Online system, Wicklow County Council’s data can be accessed in one central and secure cloud-based location and up-to-date data can be made available to the public faster than before. 

The scalable system is underpinning the rollout of services to 142,000 citizens in Wicklow and enabled the council to build a new Residential Zoned Land Tax app in just half a day. User experience is improved as data from planning applications is now updated daily and receives thousands of views per day, while planning queries now load in a matter of seconds. In addition, Wicklow County Council can publish its County Development Plan immediately, as soon as it is formally adopted.

Esri’s technology is saving time for Wicklow County Council’s 850 employees as it eliminates the need for software updates and server upgrades with additional storage. Without the time-consuming burden of server management, the council’s GIS team can focus on creating new web apps to improve public services.

ArcGIS Online also simplifies data management, making it easier for the council to keep its 450 data sets current and available, such as information on vacant development sites. The migration has resulted in a six-fold increase in the performance of the council’s web-based GIS apps for both employees and members of the public who engage with these services. The system can handle peaks in traffic without any disruptions and returns search results rapidly.

Paddy O’Flaherty, GIS Officer, Wicklow County Council said: “Managing data and maintaining our GIS platform is so much easier than before. Things that were a chore can now be done with the click of a button. Users can select a thousand features, and ArcGIS Online will still return the results straight away. 

“Not only did we migrate data to ArcGIS Online; we also did a thorough data quality review, to make sure that the data we were sharing online was the primary and most accurate data set available. ArcGIS Online has freed up time to develop more GIS services to improve our delivery of public services.”

Ted Taylor, Technical Account Manager, Esri Ireland: “We are delighted to be working once again with Wicklow County Council. It’s fantastic to see them embrace new technologies which will ensure resilience for the future. ArcGIS Online provides quick and reliable access to information, streamlines workflows, and improves programme performance, meaning the council can continue to provide vital resources to the public quickly and efficiently. We look forward to continuing to work with them to enhance these services for the residents of County Wicklow.”

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