GIS Consult developed the GC Baumkataster, a modern, GIS-based application for the State Road Construction Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia (Landesbetrieb Straßenbau Nordrhein-Westfalen), designed to plan, conduct, and document tree inspections. The solution supports Straßen.NRW in fulfilling its traffic safety obligations for approximately 400,000 roadside trees and wooded areas throughout the state.
Summary:
The State Road Construction Authority of North Rhine-Westphalia (Straßen.NRW) is responsible for the planning, construction, operation, and maintenance of the classified road network in North Rhine-Westphalia.
As part of its duty to ensure traffic safety, the agency must also regularly inspect approximately 400,000 trees in exposed locations and document the inspections as well as any measures taken.
The GC Baumkataster is a standalone module for planning, conducting, and documenting tree inspections as well as woody vegetation areas.
The application is designed as a web application and can be used with any standard web browser; a local installation is not required.
For on-site data collection, the GC Baumkataster provides a GIS-supported, powerful offline mobile component for Windows tablets. The GIS data used includes the tree inventory, the NWSIB road network, and selected geodata (ALKIS, property information, and aerial imagery). The user interface of the map component is modeled after “NWSIB-online.” Data synchronization for mobile devices is ensured by a replication mechanism that also accounts for the fact that the road network on which trees were recorded offline may have changed in the meantime (since the last replication).
In addition to the offline solution, the GC Baumkataster can also be used online with tablets, provided a connection to the central application server is available.
Value for the Client
- Efficient and legally compliant documentation of tree inspections
- Standardized GIS-supported workflows
- High data quality and traceability
- Future-proof platform with continuous development
Technical Features
The GC Baumkataster by GIS Consult, is implemented as a web application that requires no local installation. It is based on the open-source components PostGIS database and Geoserver, as well as GIS Consult’s WebGIS GC Osiris. An offline-capable mobile GIS component is available for field staff, enabling secure data collection even without network coverage. An intelligent replication mechanism ensures consistent data synchronization with the central system.
Companies involved
GIS Consult LLC as general contractor
- Project management on the contractor’s side
- Development of concepts
- Implementation of custom software for the GC Land Registry
- Import of legacy data
- Configuration management
- Documentation
- Training
Rosenthaler & Partner AG as subcontractor
- Appointment of the quality assurance manager
- Development of the quality assurance concept
- Preparation and coordination of test plans
- Contractor-side review of the concepts
- Implementation of contractor-side quality assurance
Timeline:
Original Project:
- Call for Proposals: 2013
- Quarter 1 2014 Detailed design and IT concept
- Starting quarter 2 2014 Implementation
- Early 2015 Acceptance
- Software operation starting June 2015
- Training starting in May 2015
Further integration of GC Baumkatasters:
- 2015 Integration of wooded areas.
- 2018/2019 Design of “process-supporting functionalities” for individual trees and wooded areas, or “action processing” (Maßnahmenbearbeitung) for short.
- 2019 / 2020 Implementation of action processing within the GC Baumkataster.
- 2024 Revision of the GC Baumkataster, upgrade to version 1.1 (including
adaptation of action processing to updated workflows). - 2025 Adaptation of woody area recording/modeling and integration of woody areas into action processing.
