1Spatial, a geospatial company which manages the world’s largest spatial data and its US partner, LSI, has signed a contract to supply the U.S. Census Bureau with licenses and associated services in preparations for supporting their Geographic Support System.
Through a long term engagement with the U.S. Census Bureau, 1Spatial and LSI have developed and designed an automated conflation process to bring together geospatial data from varied sources. 1Spatial’s agile approach to software development will enable the Census team to gain valuable iterative operational experience and work out efficiencies as the system develops.
The 1Spatial software is enterprise enabled for maximum efficiency and is scalable to provide high performance, whilst maintaining flexibility. It has been designed to protect investment by enabling operators to capture data within a spatial rules engine and apply the knowledge gleaned consistently throughout the organisation.
“This is a large, complex and mission critical spatial database that is growing at 10-15% annually,” explained Tim Trainor, Geography Division Chief, U.S. Census Bureau. “There are huge demands from the user community for spatial and temporal accuracy and quality, together with stringent processing deadlines.
We believe that 1Spatial and LSI’s solution will meet our expectations in contributing to an agile, Service Orientated Architecture”.
“We are delighted that the U.S. Census Bureau has seen the enormous value and benefits our solution can provide. The services provided by LSI and ourselves will enable the U.S. Census Bureau to gain maximum benefit and returns on its investment,” Marcus Hanke, CEO 1Spatial. “Drawing on proven ability to support National Mapping and Charting Agencies data management tasks, 1Spatial and LSI’s specialist consultancy and support teams will provide a real-world understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced when managing this level of spatial big data.”
“We have worked with 1Spatial on what we believe is a truly versatile solution that will provide the client with the virtualisation and flexibility they require and we look forward to moving forward with the project,” commented Mary Brauer-Cox, President of LSI.
The software and services will be utilised by the Geography Division as part of a new initiative in preparation for the 2020 Decennial Census. The Geography Division maintains the geographic base data upon which U.S. censuses and surveys are tabulated.
The Geographic Support System (GSS) Initiative is an integrated program of improved address coverage, continual spatial feature updates and enhanced assessment and measurement, which supports a targeted approach. The Address Canvassing operation is one of several operations that precedes the national census in 2020.
The data from the 2020 decennial census will be used to:
• determine the number of seats for the House of Representatives for each state
• make decisions about the type of community services to provide
• distribute more than $400 billion in Federal funds to local, state and tribal governments each year
• provide Age Search information, for example for qualifying benefits.
