Exegesis was commissioned by Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) to develop a website and mobile app, plus the underlying database and API, to enable local authorities and other stakeholders in Scotland to monitor litter and fly-tipping incidents.

ZWS is the body responsible for reducing waste and promoting a circular economy in Scotland and has been a FlyMapper partner organisation since 2013. The Litter Monitoring System (LMS) took the pre-existing functionality of FlyMapper and added the ability to record and analyse detailed surveys of street litter. These surveys are used to support the requirements of the Scottish Government's Code of Practice on Litter and Refuse (CoPLAR).

The LMS mobile app is built using Xamarin, a cross-platform development tool that allows the sharing of a codebase between Android and iOS app versions.

The LMS web site allows management of both the fly-tipping and litter monitoring elements and is built within a cloudscribe Content Management System. It already contains details of previously recorded fly-tipping incidents in Scotland.

Data taken from the Technical support for CoPLAR Land Zoning in Scotland project is imported into LMS as local authorities continue to come on-board.

Further information from Richard Griffiths.

The client required an affordable, mobile system for data gathering in the field. A key requirement was the ability to synchronise the data wirelessly with CAMS Desktop in the office from anywhere at any time.

CAMS Mobile gives you:

• Live data collection in the field
• Portable, lightweight Smartphone / tablet
• Fast, accurate GPS
• Fast, simple recording of data
• Mapping and intuitive forms
• In-built camera
• Seamless data sync 

CAMS Mobile is ideal for:

• Carrying-out condition surveys
• Ad hoc recording of work
• Information resource in your pocket
• Populating asset registers
• Recording issues
• Recording details of site visits

Download a flyer. Further information is available from Simon Allen.

The development and User Acceptance Testing were undertaken rapidly to allow the volunteer surveyors to get out in the field as soon as possible - five weeks from design to deployment! The results were hugely positive with nearly 800 surveys quickly completed and all surveyors enjoying the process.

The National Park Conservation Officer concluded that this project had shown the way for future Heritage at Risk surveying, with significant advantages over previous methodologies.

In 2014 we are enhancing the app for a new round of surveying.

See also the Ordnance Survey case study. Further information from Crispin Flower.

Find out more about FlyMapper.

The system is currently in use by 12 Local Authorities in Scotland and 15 in Wales and had recorded over 80,000 fly-tipping incidents since 2014.

FlyMapper has two components: FlyMapper Web and FlyMapper Mobile. These are two ‘views’ onto the same dataset (if you add a record on the mobile you see it on web and vice versa):

FlyMapper Mobile:

• Smartphone app utilising GPS
• Simple to use
• Works on Android and iOS devices
• Works on and off-line (using local mapping)

FlyMapper Web – similar functionality to the mobile app plus:

• User registration management
• Analysis and reporting
• Data export
• WMS
• Optimised for office use on standard web browsers

Further information is available from Richard Griffiths.

Support is provided for entering data as CMSi monitoring projects associated with a site and for incidental records collected by volunteers. The module features a range of input forms that can be customised to suit a variety of recording needs. Data can be browsed from an intuitive tree interface, filtered, and viewed in the standard map window alongside other CMSi layers.

In addition, sophisticated reports can be specified using a wizard, which are then generated within the module and exported to GIS.

The system includes a mobile app (iOS, Android and Windows) and an API to communicate with the backend CMSi system. The mobile app is used by field surveyors throughout the GBNL consortium on iPads and a range of Android tablets. The surveyors record observations and sync these with the backend CMSi database. They typically deal with many thousands of observations and species dictionaries and data volumes are quite large.

The mobile app is map-centric and uses the device GPS and offline mapping for the entire country. The app also provides more advanced control over the map layers and allows additional KML and ESRI shape files to be imported and overlaid by the end user.

The technology used by the project is based upon a number of open source and open standards frameworks and may be deployed across a wide range of Android and iOS smartphones in the market today. The technical solution developed by the project follows a modular design and has been configured for use in each of the two mobile apps (Norfolk CC and Zeeland). This modular design is important as it allows additional functionality to be added by future projects and also allows existing modules to be re-developed or even removed as native technology in mobile devices develops. It also means that new mobile apps requiring a different set of functionality can be rapidly developed using existing modules with different configurations.

Further information from Laine Skinner.