PENANG GIS PROJECT

1.0 PROJECT BACKGROUND

Penang is a state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, by the

Strait of Malacca. It is the second smallest Malaysian state by land mass of 1,048

sq km (405 sq mi). In spite of its tiny size, it has one of the largest economies

among the states of Malaysia. With a population of 1.72 million, GDP growth of

5.5%, it is one of the major economic powerhouses of Malaysia. As an island with

limited land and potential area for development, sustainable development is a major

concern, planning and development is very crucial and have to be done properly

and in a smarter way especially when conservation and preservation is also part of

Penang vision.

Penang Geographic Information System Centre (PeGIS), was established in 1992,

as a project to demonstrate the capabilities of GIS in land management and land

use planning. PeGIS's success has led to greater task when it was mandated by

top management to lead collaborative partnership and sharing of geospatial

information from and with various government department and agencies and also

private sector in Penang. PeGIS holds an important role of establishing the state

geospatial framework and roadmap in smart mapping and serve as the State

Geospatial Hub, known as PENANG GIS, providing accurate, reliable and

actionable information that will benefit all level of users from stake holder to general

public.

More than 800 users from 40 government department, agencies and public citizen;

sharing, creating, and using geospatial information in their day-to-day activities.

Penang GIS received more than 5000 hits per month and now serve as the main

and mission critical geospatial hub in Penang. At present there are more than 500

layers of geospatial information from various sectors stored and maintained in the

Penang GIS database. Data is updated periodically and regularly by the

department involved and by dedicated PeGIS team. Data is then disseminated and

published through various applications that have been specifically designed for the

use of departments as well as public at large.

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2.0 INITIATIVE

Sustainable development is the main goal of the initiative and to achieve that goal

data is the main and crucial factor. Before the initiative implemented, data is stored

in various places and databases and only compiled when it is needed. With the

implementation of Penang GIS, state geospatial hub, GIS-ready data from various

sources is easily accessible through collaboration and data sharing. To ensure that

government as well as public get benefit from this initiative, various kind of

applications are developed to publish and disseminate data. Refer to List of

Application in Appendix 1. Below are some of the activities under Penang GIS

project :

2.1 Stakeholder and Decision Making

Penang GIS host sensitive and high quality data such as LiDAR, contour,

slope,gazetted area, forest reserve etc. helps stake holders and departments

to define accurate, efficient and effective planning and proper monitoring

especially on high impact projects such as high land development. Key city

and municipal councils have been using Penang GIS to design sustainable

structural layouts inthe city and improve accountability and efficiency in the

state government. Penang GIS also assist departments, especially technical

departments in improving their service delivery. Various application including

dashboard and web application are developed to fulfill the purpose. Refer to

List of Application in Appendix 1.

2.2 Conservation and Preservation

2.2.1 George Town World Heritage

Penang, as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, uses geospatial

technology to map and support the preservation and monitoring of

George Town’s cultural legacy. PeGIS in collaboration with George

Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI), enables policymakers to

monitor and enhance conservation efforts by creating virtual

storymap-based inventory of Penang’s heritage sites that are

accessible in any device, anytime and anywhere.Refer to List of

Application in Appendix 1.

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2.2.2 Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve

With a total of 6 peaks and the highest standing impressively at 833

meters (2733 ft) above sea level, Penang Hill features the best

lookouts in Penang, offering panoramic views of the island and

mainland. Apart from the fantastic views, Penang Hill also host many

species of flora and fauna including very rare and endangered

species. PeGIS in collaboration with Penang Hill Corporation (PHC),

developed Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve in order to preserve the

valuable heritage.

2.2.3 Water Catchment

Water catchment areas sustain life on this planet by providing food

and water to communities, contribute substantially to economy and

provide the foundation for rich and diverse natural environment.

Evidence has emerged that catchment systems are facing

enormous and ongoing threats from human activities and thus

reducing the quality of life over the coming decades. Sustainable

management of water catchment is important to ensure all

development activities will have an acceptable impact on both

water yield and water quality and collaboration with Water

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Monitoring Division and Penang Water Services is done to achieve

the goal.

2.2.4 Aquilaria Malaccensis (Gaharu)

A special project to map aquilaria malaccensis (karas). Collaboration

with Penang Botanic Garden, Forest Research Institute Malaysia &

State Forestry Department. Information is used to monitor and protect

the trees. Application accessible in any device is developed to help

the monitoring process. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

2.2.5 Gazetted Padi Field

A special project to map all the gazetted padi field according to

cadastral lot. Collaboration with Penang Department of Irrigation and

Drainage. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

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2.3 Serving Vulnerable Group

Penang GIS also support to enhance the quality of life of vulnerable group

and people around them. Geospatial data and applications is developed for

this group. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1. More data such as

rehabilitation center, location of NGOs offices, disable friendly building, toilet

etc will be more meaningful and Penang GIS is looking forward to host them.

2.3.1 Childcare Center

Collaboration with Penang Woman Development Centre (PWDC) and

Department of Social Welfare Malaysia to map registered childcare

center for monitoring purposes. By processing childcare center with

other geospatial data such as demographic data from Department of

Statistics Malaysia etc, more meaningful information is derived for the

sake of child welfare. Parents especially for working parents, also

benefited from this collaboration, they will be able to search for the

best center that match their criteria. Refer to List of Application in

Appendix 1.

2.3.2 Care Center Mapping

Registered care centers under Department of Social Welfare

Malaysia such as care center for woman, senior citizen, disable etc

are mapped and published in application. This application will help

guardians to easily locate the care center they are looking for. Refer to

List of Application in Appendix 1.

2.3.3 Parking for Disable

Reducing challenges and enhancing social life of disable will lead to a

happy life for them. Traveling from one point to another is always a

difficulties to disable person. By developing application to locate the

nearest disable parking space at given destination will create more

activity and enhances satisfaction in life for them. Mapping of disable

parking space also helps government to improve their services by

creating more disable parking space at a right place and a right time.

Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

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2.4 Disaster Mapping

2.4.1 Land Slide Prone Area

Slope analysis is done to identify the landslide prone area base on

historical data.

2.4.2 Flood Hotspot

Flood area and location is mapped to identify flood hot spot based on

historical flood occurance since year 1991.

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2.5 Utility

Collaboration with utility companies such as Indah Water Konsortium (IWK) –

the national sewerage company, and telecommunications companies ensure

that utilities related data from the private sector can be viewed and utilized by

the government for planning and development purposes. In return,

companies get the privilege to access geospatial data for their monitoring

and future planning purposes. Refer to List of Application in Appendix 1.

2.6 Public

Various application are developed to help public/community in their day-to-

day activity. Useful application can be access through smart phone. More

application for public engagement are planned to be developed. Public can

also contribute crowdsource project base data to help government in

populating data to provide the best services to community Refer to List of

Application in Appendix 1.

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2.7 Open Data

The sharing of open data can be incredibly beneficial to society: facilitating

enhanced scientific collaboration and reproducibility, increasing government

and corporate transparency, and speeding the discovery and understanding

of solutions to planetary and societal needs. In support of the idea, Penang

GIS promotes open data through Malaysia's Open Data Portal, and Penang

GeoHub at http://geohub-pegis.opendata.arcgis.com/. Penang GeoHub is a

community's public platform for exploring and downloading open data,

discovering and building apps, and engaging to solve important local issues.

Public can analyze and combine Open Datasets using maps, as well as

develop new web and mobile applications. Data can be downloaded in a

form of spreadsheet, shapefile, KML, geo services and geo JSON.

3.0 AWARDS & ACHIEVEMENTS

Penang is the first state in Malaysia to develop and implement a state-wide

geospatial data program. Penang GIS has become a benchmark for other states in

developing such programs. As a leader in this field at the state level, PeGIS was

selected by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) as the GIS

Center of Excellence for State Government in Malaysia. This selection makes

PeGIS a reference site for the development of GIS. Other states in Malaysia such

as State of Selangor (Darul Ehsan GIS – DEGIS), State of Perak (Perak GIS),

State of Negeri Sembilan (GIS-9) and State of Johor (GeoJohor) to name a few,

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make PeGIS as a model in the development and implementation of state

geospatial program.

In recognition of the contribution, PeGIS was awarded the Malaysia National

Geospatial Award in 2014 . With the excellent achievement, PeGIS also won

Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award from ESRI in 2017. PeGIS was selected

to receive the award from among more than 300,000 international commercial and

public sector organizations in recognition of its innovative use of geographic

information system (GIS) technology to solve real-world challenges.

4.0 IMPACT

Penang GIS emphasized on collaborative participation and data sharing to improve

delivery of public services. This initiative has become a timely, accurate, efficient

and effective tools for stake holders and departments in decision making thus

benefited the public. Some of the impact resulted from this initiative are as follows :

1. The projects provide users convenience, especially departments and technical

agencies to get and use geospatial information faster and easier. Enhanced data

sharing and service collaboration among government departments and agencies

thus eliminate duplication of data collection.

Before the implementation of Penang GIS, departments faced a lot of problems

as follows :

a) Most of the geospatial information is still in a form of hardcopy maps.

b) Data are stored in various places and databases and exist as islands of

information

c) Unwillingness to share data

d) Duplication of efforts in collecting, storing and distributing geospatial data

that contributed to the waste of cost, time and human resources

e) Constraints in sharing of geospatial information necessary for the

planning, development, security and disaster management

f) Problems with getting access to the existing multisource geospatial data

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2. Decision making process is more accurate, easy and fast with diverse data

utilization from multiple sources;

3. Cost savings – Sharing of data reduces duplication and redundancy of data

collection. Online services at 24x7 assure users to get information anywhere

they are without having to come to PeGIS.

4. Time savings - Information can be accessed and disseminate easily through

multiple devices at any time. For example Lot Finder and Lot Tracker. Lot Finder

manage to cut down the searching time of lots. Before online mapping and lot

searching is developed, when planning submission came in, user have to search

the lot on a hard copy working plan and if the lot does not exists they have to go

to Land Survey and Mapping department for further search. Sometimes to

identify the lot , might takes a few days. By using Lot Finder, lot can be identify

within minutes. Before Lot Tracker is developed, site officer faced problems to

identify lot on open space, agriculture land etc. Sometimes they have to use

manual way to measure the location of the lot. Sometimes they even have to

visit the same area several times. This innovation really helps the site officer in

doing their job efficiently.

5. Save government departments and agencies in terms of procurement of

geographic information system (GIS) software;

6. Creativity Enhancement

“DATA IS KING, TALENT IS EVERYTHING” is Penang tag line to promote open

data initiative. In line with this initiative, Penang GIS publish open data service to

be consumed by all. This data can be used by public to creatively develop

application for the benefit of community.

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7. Convenience to users

Statistics shows that number of users using online maps are increasing.

Whereas for offline users, normally is for special projects and customised maps.

Year Number of offline

information

application

Number of

online map

access

2016 112 58, 795

2015 97 56, 754

2014 81 55, 737

2013 382 24, 548

2012 351 26, 539

5.0 CONCLUSION

Collaboration and data sharing is one of the crucial part in this new era. Silo

mentality will lead to failure. Promoting smart partnership and data sharing is a must

to ensure a sustainable future. In order to improve further, public engagement is one

of the area that has to be taken into consideration and Penang GIS is moving

towards it.

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APPENDIX 1

LIST OF APPLICATIONS

i) Application for Stakeholder and Department

1. ePeta Teknikal (Technical eMap)

This application contain more

than 200 layers of information

including technical, critical

and confidential data such as

cadastral lots, contours,

slope, orthophoto etc. Users

will be able to analyze area of

interest by overlaying the

suitable layers to get a result.

Search and incident analysis

function are also provided.

2. Wet Market Dashboard

Wet Master Master Plan is

developed to help government

provide a better facilities to the

public. By using geospatial,

government will be able to

locate where is the highly

populated area that need to

build a new wet market or to

expand the existing market.

Top management also will be

able to identify location which

are outside the given radius.

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3. Drug Addiction Dashboard

An interactive dasboard that

shows statistics of drug abuse

in Malaysia by state, by

gender, by race etc. Top

management will be able to

see trend and number of cases

every year and this will help

them plan a better program in

order to reduce the number of

cases each year.

4. Housing Dashboard

Penang affordable home

program is design to help

Penangite especially the low

income group to own a house.

To help the top management

visualize this program, a

dashboard on applicants is

created. Top management will

be able to identify supply and

demand base on district,

available units etc.

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5. Disabled Community Parking Dashboard

Application for city council to

identify best or suitable location

to create parking for disabled

community base on point of

interest density map such as

banks, government offices,

restaurants etc.

6. Aquilaria Malaccensis (Gaharu)

A special project to map

aquilaria malaccensis (karas).

Collaboration with Penang

Botanic Garden, Forest

Research Institute Malaysia &

State Forestry Department.

Information is used to monitor

and protect the trees.

Application accessible in any

device is developed to help the

monitoring process.

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7. Gazetted Padi Field

Application that map all the lot

that is gazetted as padi field.

Departments esp. technical

departments will be able to

identify and respond to

application of developement

project.

8. Sewerage

Collaboration with Indah

Water Konsortium (IWK) – the

national sewerage company

to map all the asset under

their management. Integration

with geospatial layers from

other sources helps the

company for a proper

planning.

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ii) Application for Public and Community

1. ePeta Public View (Public eMap)

This application contain more

than 40 layers of geospatial

information for public to view.

Most of the public utility layer can

be access through this

application. Users will be able to

overlay and visualized

2. Lot Tracker

Identifying cadastral lot on the

site during filed work is always

a problem to field workers. This

application is developed to

overcome the problem. The

use of smartphone will help

user identify the correct

surveyed cadastral lot on site.

User also will be able to view

adjacent lot based on radius

given.

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3. Lot Finder

Application to help user search

for surveyed cadastral lot

based on lot no (unique parcel

identifier(UPI)). User will able to

identify location of the lot and

also surrounding area. Help

users to get the picture of what

is on the ground before going

to site for inspection.

4. Geographical Name

Application to help user search

for the correct name of places

as what is gazetted by the

authority. Determination of

geographical name is one of the

activity under United Nation

Group of Expert in

Geographical Names

(UNGEGN).

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5. Local Perspective

Find the nearest public facilities

around you. More than 20

layers of public facilities can be

viewed such as hospital,

schools, college, petrol station,

banking facilities, post office,

convenience store etc. User

can locate using smartphone or

on screen. This application is

smart enough to give direction

and estimate time for traveling

to that location.

6. Registered Care Center

Application that map

registered care centers under

Department of Social Welfare

Malaysia such as care center

for woman, senior citizen,

disable etc are mapped and

published in application.

Guardians will easily locate

the care center they are

looking for nearby.

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7. Childcare Center

Identify the location of childcare

center base on the given

criteria. Parent esp. working

parents will be able to identify

the best location for their love

ones.

8. Parking

Find out road side parking

location and rate. Also location

of the nearest outlet that sell

parking coupon, or user also

can locate the nearest private

parking space or shopping

complex parking.

9. Parking OKU (Disable Parking)

Application to locate the

nearest disable parking space

at given destination. This

application is smart enough to

give direction and estimate

time for traveling to that

location.

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10. Penang Free Wifi

Find out penang free wifi

access point around you.

Used up your data plan

qouta? Sign up for penang

free wifi and stay connected.

11. What's Up Penangite

Application that integrate with

social media. User will be

able to see what and where

penangites are talking about

any interested topic on twitter,

instagram, youtube & flickr.

Also get a view of the traffic

condition through traffic cctvs.

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12. Story Map Street Art

Since its inscription as a world

heritage site, George Town,

Penang, has developed a

vibrant street art scene. This

began with marking george

town in 2009, which brought

the telling of street and social

history through the use of

caricatures. Through this story

map user will be able walk

through each of it.

13. Heritage Traders

Living heritage is one of the

asset that still exist in Penang.

As a word heritage site,

George Town manage all this

assets excellently.

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14. Heritage Spot

Reveal the historic quarter,

where the oldest civic

buildings, landmarks and

religious institutions are

located.

15. A Walk Through History

The island of penang was an

important trade route for

Europe, the Middle East, India

and China in the distant past.

It is because of this that the

island has such a diverse

melting pot of cultures;

travelers all brought their own

culture to penang. This

application maps the story of

historical places, streets and

landmarks. Old picture of the

place are captured for new

generation to appreciate.

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16. Museum and Art Gallery

Feature location of all

museum and art gallery in

Penang.

17. Beaches and Waterfront

Penang beaches and

waterfronts are plentiful and

hailed as some of the most

breathtaking in the country,

drawing a steady crowd of

tourists and locals.

18. Sport Facilities

Sport facilities manage by

National Sport Council of

Penang is mapped to help

Penangites to live a healthy

live.

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19. Community Engagement

Community engagement to

map location of disable

parking space. Public can

participate by taking photo of

the location through this

application.

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