Prior to the award presentation, Michael Howard, GIS Manager, City of Sherbrooke, provided more than 200 conference attendees with a general outline of the GOcité project and the advantages that this innovative corporate municipal GIS offers to the City of Sherbrooke.

 “This Award of Excellence was presented to GOcité in recognition of the quality of the project and the positive impact it has had not only for GOcité partners, but also for the entire Quebec municipal community,” said Mr. Miller.

GOcité is the first municipal inventory management software package designed by cities, for cities. It brings together data models that meet specific municipal needs and includes specialized tools to improve the effectiveness of a variety of different users. Developed using industry standard systems, GOcité enables municipalities and related organizations to make use of spatial reference data with the help of advanced technological tools, while recognizing certain economies of scale.

 The GOcité project was formed as a result of a 1996 initiative between the Cities of Sherbrooke and Longueuil who were looking to develop a common geomatics system.  In 2006, DMR Consulting (a Fujitsu Company) assumed responsibility for the upgrade and migration the GOcité project to ArcGIS.  Today, the Cities of Sherbrooke, Longueuil, Victoriaville, Thetford Mines, and Saint-Eustache and the borough of Saint-Laurent in the City of Montreal have all collaborated on the GOcité project.

GOcité is architected as an enterprise GIS.  The spatial data, including infrastructure and base map data, is centrally maintained in an RDBMS using ArcSDE.  Data updates are handled by the various municipal services that have the necessary expertise to ensure the quality and integrity of the information that enters the system.  The data serves a number of applications including infrastructure and asset management, urban planning, taxation, and operations planning. Datasets available include hydrographic, cadastral, sewer, electrical, topographic, and environmental data.

 The GOcité web platform, built on ArcIMS technology, provides access to maps and online services for City employees via an Internet browser. This service has proven to be very useful for municipal employees who are not proficient in geomatics and need to access their City’s spatial data. The data is also available to selected City employees via ArcGIS Desktop.

 About ESRI Canada:
Established in 1984, ESRI Canada is a Canadian owned company specializing in geographic information systems (GIS) solutions. ESRI Canada distributes the world's leading GIS software solutions from ESRI Inc., Miner and Miner, and Azteca. In order to provide organizations with complete industry-specific solutions ESRI Canada has established an extensive business partner program that includes more than 125 Canadian organizations. ESRI Canada also provides professional services including consulting, training, technical support, and enterprise GIS implementation. ESRI Canada is a leader in providing world-class enterprise GIS solutions for many industries including local government, utilities, public safety and defence, business demographics, education, natural resources, and transportation. ESRI Canada has fifteen regional offices across the country, with headquarters in Toronto, Ontario. For more information, please visit www.esricanada.com or call 1-800-447-9778.