City of Sainte-Thérèse: Simplify communications to residents about parking and mobility

Sainte-Thérèse, located on Montréal’s North Shore, is home to more than 26,000 people. Its town motto declares it a place where art, culture and knowledge meet. But Sainte-Thérèse’s close relationship with its residents and its determination to try to always be in tune with their needs are what really set it apart. The social media and digital communication boom has brought a new set of challenges: cities are now called upon to communicate better, as fast as possible and with residents spread out across various technology platforms.

These challenges pushed the town’s IT department and geomatics team to improve its communication strategy for Sainte-Thérèse’s new winter parking rules. Their main goal was to help make snow-removal operations run more smoothly by minimizing constraints, while also making life easier for residents and providing a more straightforward dispute resolution process.

THE CHALLENGE

The IT team planned to achieve this by creating a publicly available map that would be updated daily with information about where residents were and were not allowed to park based on the progress of snow removal operations. The approach of winter made for a tight turnaround time. To make matters worse, there was no one available internally to assign to the project, and the department did not have access to FME Server technology at the time.

That’s when the head of the IT department decided to reach out to a partner company―Consortech―for help. First and foremost, she wanted to find a company with expertise in using FME’s no-code capabilities to automate the map-making process. The company had to be able to get everything done within a strict deadline. The deliverable also had to be designed and documented in such a way that the IT department’s team members would be able to take over and handle future changes.

The head of IT was already considering migrating to FME Server, but she wanted to make sure that it was the right move by looking at other cases where similar municipalities had made use of FME Server in geomatics and IT contexts. FME server proved to be indispensable to the project.

THE SOLUTION

We mutually agreed, early on, to set realistic expectations for the first version of the project. The first order of business would be to concentrate on making sure the solution worked as it should; it could be updated down the line based on user feedback gathered from winter to winter. The project’s main goals were to:

• Deliver a useful solution that’s easy for residents to understand
• Help team members develop FME and FME Server skills
• Demonstrate the value of investing in FME Server by showing elected officials, management and other city departments just how much it can do.

The project was split into two deliverables. The first involved using FME Server to automate the extraction and processing of data collected by public works supervisors. The second focused on developing an FME script to automate the process of publishing updated winter parking information in two different formats: an interactive map and a static PDF map. The PDF map was meant to be saved for reference and later use, and an email was to be sent daily to let relevant individuals know that the map was available.

A collaborative approach was used so that we could change course when needed based on certain project constraints, specifically technological limitations caused by the supervisors’ use of Excel files during the initial phase of the project. By working together, we could make changes early in the process, meaning fewer iterations and less time wasted.

One of those changes made came from the Consortech expert’s suggestion: creating an FME workspace to automatically generate a PDF map with current data. Originally, the plan was to use an image as a map background with all the vector information rasterized. The project’s collaborative approach meant that a part-time GIS specialist hired by the town could join the team midway through. The GIS specialist worked with Consortech to help develop the FME script and publish the interactive map on the town’s website using JMap.

THE VALUE PROVIDED

The project was a success: it was completed right in time for Sainte-Thérèse residents to be able to take advantage of the updated parking rules ahead of the first snowfall. The new web-based map was a rousing success—it quickly became the most popular map on the town’s website, with 96% of all views!

The solution also helped boost organizational efficiency. The Communications Department found that they were fielding only half as many calls about winter parking. Employees at the municipal court were also able to use the archived maps to justify tickets issued for parking violations.

It also yielded positive results for the IT department and its GIS specialist, who greatly benefited from the low‑code FME application’s user-friendly interface. What’s more, using FME Server and its notification features meant that the team was able to troubleshoot problems more quickly, since they were notified of issues as soon as they occurred. This quick response proved to be vital during the snow-clearing period, when information had to be published at a specific time.

The town’s GIS specialist will be able to use the knowledge gained from working together with the Consortech expert on this solution to improve his skills with FME technology and upgrade the delivered solution on his own in the next phases of the project. He will also be well positioned to easily and efficiently automate the deployment of other kinds of maps.