Mid Ulster Council Digitises Waste Collection Data

Discover how Mid Ulster Council digitised the collection of trade waste from more then 250 sites across the Dungannon area and increase productivity by 80% using Azimap compared to utilising similar processes on the council’s proprietary GIS.

Straddling two counties and with a population of more than 140,000, Mid Ulster District Council provides local services to a diverse population spread across both urban and rural communities.

One of the many jobs for Mid Ulster District Council is the collection of Trade Waste from 250 sites across the Dungannon Area. Although the collection of waste is completed regularly, the actual amount of waste being collected varied greatly from truck to truck and indeed from route to route. Information from the individual routes, including the amount of waste collected was collated by the council on Excel spreadsheets.

MUDC required the digitisation of this data to allow them to present it on a map for analysis. This would enable their GIS officer Nicky Doris to optimise collection routes dependant on location, weight and type of waste. The data itself had no latitude or longitude coordinates but was a collection of addresses which were not formatted correctly to be imported into a GIS.

How Azimap Was Used to Fulfil Project Requirements

By using Azimap, Nicky never had to leave the digitisation workflow to complete this task which enabled him to increase productivity by 80% compared to utilising similar processes on the council’s proprietary GIS. The task of undertaking this project within Azimap simply involved:

Importing a non-spatial CSV into Azimap as a new layer
Choosing which attributes are ‘editable’ & ‘required’ dependant on the data
Saving this layer and showing it on a Map
Plotting trade waste sites on the map via a simple address search within Azimap
Editing the database table entries within Azimap as required
Never having to leave the Azimap digitisation workflow process
Saving and Exporting the data out of Azimap in his required format

“As a digitisation tool, Azimap was fantastic in comparison to the usual methods used to capture data. The digitisation workflow made this process extremely quick and accurate which is a priority for me. Added to this the ability to complete each record fully without having to leave the application, it was perfect for this task.”

Nicky Doris, GIS Officer, Mid Ulster District Council