Web Land Information Management Systems

Spatially Enabling Property Registration

The effects of Google Earth, Yahoo maps and the imminent MS Virtual Earth have changed the expectations of consumers in regard to the use and accessibility of mapping data. As such, IT implementations with a spatial element have become the norm and have firmly crossed over from being regarded as ‘exclusive’ and/or ‘niche’ projects. This way the perception of spatial data as ‘special' is gradually changing.

The mapping area in the Digital Mapping System (DMapS) is made up of intelligent data layers that allow the user to zoom in and out of the information at different scales.

‘Everything Is Somewhere’

Recent land management projects by Cambridge-based data quality experts 1Spatial have illustrated that spatial data can be stored, managed and, crucially, regularly updated and maintained alongside other data types as part of the core business process. Such projects provide an exciting glimpse into the future of spatially enabled public information and its dissemination via the web.

Everyday we are all confronted with spatial data, whether we consciously recognise it or not. All aspects of our lives can be related back to spatial information. Ensuring that you pay the correct amount of council tax, a planning decision on the new estate being built at the end of your road, and the development and improvement to the local infrastructure in your area all relate back to spatial information. The well-worn adage ‘everything is somewhere’ still rings as true as ever. Society is now demanding immediate and 24/7 online access to accurate spatial information; a by-product of the ‘Google effect’. However, if data being accessed and used is out-of-date or inaccurate the data owner could be subject to litigation, or at least suffer from a loss of faith in its products by consumers. The visible nature of spatial data means that even the most untrained eye easily spots errors and inconsistencies. The agencies managing and working with land information both locally and on a national scale now must deal with these problems as a matter of course. How do we meet such demands and expectations when, traditionally, land information collection has typically been a paper-based, manual, expensive and error-prone exercise?

Many agencies and cadastres are now undertaking modernisation programmes of their existing land information management systems, but are finding that the information is inaccurate or incomplete. The most common problems include significant discrepancies between the information on many property titles and their actual status, overlaps and gaps between neighbouring parcels or parcels in other layers and the size of the parcels.

The effective management of an integrated land administration system improves accuracy and availability of data and reduces costs through, among other things, minimising duplication, economies of scale, and the potential synergies of sharing the service provision among different stakeholders. Digital land information systems being developed should not only form the basis of the functions of a land board and its administration but also be part of a wider integrated system, such as INSPIRE (see ‘Example 2: GeoHub NI’ below). Land information management should be the nexus of all the land administration functions of a national land board and should integrate with the land registry, surveying, monitoring and planning departments. A suitable data infrastructure and associated set of tools that can support and manage this level of integration is essential for implementing and operating a successful land management system.

Users are offered a variety of additional information layers that can be added or removed depending on the search criteria.

Example 1: The Digital Mapping System (DMapS)

The Property Registration Authority (PRA) is an umbrella term for the Registry of Deeds System (founded 1707) and the Land Registration System (founded 1891), that deal with recording the notice and priority of deeds and recording and registering title to land, respectively. A very high standard of professional knowledge, integrity and informed decision-making is necessary to safeguard property rights. Many of the decisions of the PRA affect the legal rights of individuals and organisations and are quasi-judicial in nature. In making such decisions PRA personnel are required to apply legislation, take cognisance of court decisions and adhere to principals of natural and constitutional justice.

Historically the PRA was heavily dependent on paper as all folio and map records were held together with the supporting indices in paper form. This demanded a great deal of resource to manage, move and store these assets. There were over 8 million pages of title records, 36,000 A0 map sheets, more than 2 million paper indices and over 200,000 folios available for inspection at any time.

One challenge that the PRA faced was an outdated and deteriorating paper map base that was increasingly impacting on the decision-making process. Furthermore, the paper-based system meant that a single change had to be made many times to various data sources, therefore slowing down the application and workflow process for the PRA’s customers. There were also a number of issues of strategic importance emerging within the PRA’s own specific operational environment. Most important, perhaps, has been the unprecedented growth in the property market, which has accompanied the increased prosperity and economic expansion experienced in Ireland since the mid-1990s; this growth has been a major contributory factor to the increased volumes of transactions flowing through the PRA.

To satisfy the demand for access to the Register the PRA set about a programme of developments to create an Electronic Register that would allow for the enhancement of internal processes and provide the opportunity to significantly improve the delivery of their services to customers. The key operational system used internally by about 600 members of PRA staff to process casework is known as Integrated Title Registration Information System (ITRIS). As part of the implementation of ITRIS a data capture facility was developed to convert folios from a paper form into a structured digital form held within the ITRIS system.

The PRA undertook a major project to implement document-imaging technology accompanied by a programme to have all its paper folios and filed plans systematically converted into electronic records and to make these available on-line to customers through landdirect.ie. This challenging conversion programme, which commenced in January 2002, was successfully completed in August 2004, several months ahead of schedule. 6.4 million pages of unique PRA records were scanned and indexed, all of which have been made available to internal staff to assist casework processing and to on-line customers through landdirect.ie.

The PRA ran a competition through the Official Journal of the European Community (OJEC) for the provision of the Digital Mapping System, which was won in 2005 by a consortium headed by 1Spatial. 1Spatial has many years of working with organisations that use large volumes of very complex spatial data, and their solutions are designed around the full Oracle technology stack. Other members of the consortium included 1Spatial Scotland (formerly IME UK Ltd) for the interface design and the web-based viewing system, 1Spatial Ireland (formerly Proteus Systems) to assist building the application, and Version1 Software Limited to provide Oracle services and act as independent tester.

The business objectives of the Digital Mapping project were to:

• Support the electronic storage and retrieval of mapping information
• Reduce the turnaround time of applications
• Provide online access to maps
• Assist with the electronic lodging of specific types of application
• Provide enhanced business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities
• Provide enhanced searching facilities including geographical and spatial-based searches
• Provide enhanced application tracking facilities on all lodged applications
• Enable the PRA to deliver its mandate under the national ‘Information Society Action Plan’/’Electronic Government’ programme
• Provide more extensive management information through caseload reporting and ad hoc querying tools
• Support the PRA in meeting its requirements under the Irish Government’s ‘Strategic Management Initiative/Delivering Better Government’ initiative. 

The Technology

The challenge set for the consortium headed by 1Spatial was to design a Digital Mapping System that could be seamlessly integrated with the existing business critical systems. The result was DMapS, a sophisticated, rules-based solution that loads, stores, updates and delivers large-scale data from Ordnance Survey Ireland in combination with captured land parcel information. DMapS offers the Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) integrated user functionality to allow creation and editing, and a customised user interface. The consortium’s approach was based upon safeguarding the accuracy of the registrations within the map base using 1Spatial’s flagship persistent server-side topology engine, Radius TopologyTM.

DMapS provides a full audit history of Land Parcels providing a complete genealogy of each parcel, and also enables spatial querying of Land Registrations through a web interface by external conveyancers. Changes are made in real time and once saved are then instantly viewable by the rest of the organisation. The intelligent search facility allows users to break away from indexes and grid references they were used to using on their paper maps to an electronic search facility.

Searches of the database can be performed either by typing in an address or by "zooming in" from an aerial map, allowing users to see Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) details, registered boundaries and photographs right down to street level, in much the same way as when using the popular online application Google Earth. The PRA has licensed the entire suite of orthophotographs, based on aerial photography of the entire country, from the OSi for this purpose.

Freehold land parcel shown in the Land Registry’s ITRIS (Integrated Title Registration Information System).

An image of the original paper document and map scans.

The move to digital mapping has had a huge impact on the PRA. In recent years there has been an unprecedented increase in the volume of property transactions that they have processed. The number of legal transactions alone, completed per annum grew from 98,479 in 1999 to 221,815 in 2006 – an increase of 123,336 or more than 125%.

Today over 80% of the PRA’s non-registration services are provided through landdirect.ie, entirely on a self-service basis, with no intervention by PRA staff and no delays. Virtually all of these applications now issue within 24 hours of the application being made. The remainder (where physical certificates or products are required) can be applied for on-line and delivered through a process that is almost completely automated.

The success of the PRA’s electronic services is evidenced by the high level of usage and the growing number of subscribers, which now exceeds 11,000. By the end of 2006 more than 4 million fee-paying transactions had been conducted online with a similar number of non fee-paying transactions also undertaken.

In addition to the services already available on landdirect.ie with the introduction of Digital Mapping, the PRA now offers its customers Ireland’s first national database of land related information online which has been incorporated into the suite of services already available. The service now provides customers the capacity to:

•           Search and locate property using an online digital map

•           Use the property index to find an address and locate a title record

•           View & print folios and ‘filed plan’ maps

•           Obtain details of pending and completed applications

•           Conduct names index searches

•           Request official certified copy folios and filed plan maps

•           Order official copies of Instruments

•           Track progress of applications during lifecycle

•           Submit applications for registration on-line (e-lodgement). 

Digital Benefits

The major benefits to customers of digital mapping as opposed to paper mapping are obvious and attractive, and have helped to expedite the take up of landdirect.ie. They include:

• Improved timeliness and speed of service: conducting inspections of folios and filed plans is now instantaneous and copying services have become virtually automated. landdirect.ie has also contributed to a reduction in the time taken to process certain applications, especially where applications for registration are made electronically
• Improved convenience through extended hours of availability: the landdirect.ie service is available between 8 am and 8 pm, Monday through Friday, whereas services through public offices are confined to between 10.30am and 4.30pm
• On-line data is far more usable and flexible than paper-based records: desktop delivery of Land Registry information has improved the support that the PRA’s customers can, in turn, provide to their customers
• Improved service through Local Offices: for example, the Local Offices based in the Circuit Court offices in each county can now access information relating to the entire country rather than their own county only. Also, it is now possible to view certain map records from these offices for the first time. 

The on-line access programme has also assisted other Government Departments and agencies, such as Courts Service, National Roads Authority, and Local Authorities to improve their own business processes.

Digital mapping has also brought several benefits to the PRA itself, including:

• A greater ability to cope with the expanding demands for services: due to the growth in applications in recent years, an online service delivery channel such as the landdirect.ie. has been essential
• An improved perception of the PRA to their customers
• More responsive customer relationship: delivery of online services has enabled the PRA to develop a closer understanding of customer expectations
• Providing the opportunity for the PRA to communicate its own requirements to customers: expected to lead to lower levels of error in the documents presented by customers
• The promotion of greater flexibility within the PRA: resulting in improved workflow processes and improved turnaround times for casework
• The promotion of further use of IT within the title registration process: a factor that will become particularly relevant in the lead up to eConveyancing
• Facilitated PRA membership of the European Land and Information Service (EULIS): the PRA expects to be in a position to offer live services through the EULIS web portal www.eulis.org.

Two e-Government awards in 2005 acknowledged the success and effectiveness of the work completed to date for the delivery of online services. More recently, the PRA has again won Best Project in the ‘State Body’ category of the Irish e-Government awards 2007 in respect of the Digital Mapping project. The 2007 Innovation Through Technology Awards (run by Inside Government magazine) saw the PRA win Best Project in the ‘Government to Business’ category. 1Spatial and the PRA also received the Association of Geographic Information (AGI) Award in London, in November 2006 for ‘Innovation and Best Practice’. The Award encourages best practice and the implementation of pioneering technology within the geographic and spatial information industry. The essential criteria for the award included evidence of added value, improved levels of service, reduced costs and user satisfaction.

Example 2: GeoHub NITM

The INSPIRE EU Directive promotes a European-wide Spatial Data Infra­structure (SDI), creating wide-reaching repercussions for both the public and private sector.  Existing spatial data should be re-used and made available locally and globally via on-demand web services. The INSPIRE Directive entered into force on 17th May 2007, but the Northern Irish Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (DCAL) are already leading the way with their geographic information (GI) strategy processed through Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland.

GeoHub NI, a web-based system with GI technologies and a spatial data storage warehouse, is currently being developed by 1Spatial, Fujitsu and ESRI. GeoHub NI is a central repository for spatial data from both the public and private sector, incorporating elements such as educational, agricultural, statistical and address data with telecoms, water, gas, and electricity data. This data will be managed and maintained centrally, and made available through web services to citizens, public sector and private sector organisations (More information at www.ec-gis.org/Workshops/13ec-gis/presentations/5_sdi_ implementation_III_mclaughlin_3.pdf).

Geohub NI - the official launch will be taking place in early 2008.

GeoHub NI is being developed using open standards. The sophisticated infrastructure is based on Oracle 10g and OGC compliant technologies for Web Mapping, Web Feature Serving, and Web Registry (cataloguing) Services with emphasis on the management and storage of data. GeoHub NI  started live initially in November 2007, with the official launch taking place in early 2008.

As shown in the above examples, digitising and improving digital systems is essential for land management organisations. Improving the frequency of updates (and their subsequent accurate integration), data sharing and open standards are all key to providing optimal services. As laws become more stringent and the ‘Google effect’ becomes yet more widespread, the demands on data providers will increase. With consumers expecting instant web access and becoming even more reliant on the 24/7 availability and accuracy of information, high data quality stands to emerge further as the most important part of any digital land management system.

Chloe Rooney (chloe.rooney@1spatial.com) is Marketing Communications Manager, 1Spatial. For more information visit www.1spatial.com.