Lela Garlington,The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

Remember the vivid and graphic images that the Mars Rover took of the Red Planet?

That same technology will be used later this year in Shelby County.

Vehicles with special cameras mounted on the roofs will be slowly roaming and photographing every street, alleyway and interstate for images of buildings, homes and businesses that make up the grit and grind of Shelby County.

The images will be a part of a new public safety mapping system that will help police, fire and ambulance personnel reach their destinations without getting lost or worried about the location being outside their jurisdiction.

You really need a seamless county map. That’s what we are doing statewide. It will be part of a statewide map, said Lynn Questell, executive director for the Tennessee Emergency Communications Board. We have got to have the accuracy to plot 911 calls.

By 2014, the state is expected to finish its upgrades for the entire 911 system in which all emergency calls will eventually be routed based on mapping coordinates pinpointing the caller’s location. It will be the same infrastructure from Memphis to Mountain City, Questell added.

On Thursday, the state board is expected to approve a proposal to conduct its first text-to-911 pilot program in Middle Tennessee.

Earlier this month, Shelby County’s Emergency Communications District 911 approved GIS Data Resources, Inc. as its top mapmaker over two other competitors. County officials hope contract negotiations with the San Rafael, Calif. company will wrap up by October.

Depending on the final agreement, GIS Data Resources has indicated a 12-month project will cost about $3.3 million. Two other companies gave the board lower bids for a 12-month contract. GEO-Jobe of Nashville bid $2.2 million. Michael Baker Jr., Inc, an engineering firm based in Moon Township, Pa. was the lowest bidder with $1.3 million. The district has budgeted $5.5 million for the project.

Timothy Zimmer, geographic information systems administrator for Shelby County 911, said the committee selected GIS Data Resources because of its experience with public safety mapping. The company has or is in the process of mapping Knox County in Tennessee, New York City, Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) and Contra Costa County, which is in San Francisco Bay Area.

They are strictly a GIS company. They don’t really sell software. They just do GIS services, Zimmer said. Their subcontractors were the strongest. The other vendors were using their own propriety GIS system that wasn’t compatible with our system.

One of the first things the GIS Data Resources or GDR will do is a pilot project involving a 15-square mile area with sections of Bartlett, Memphis, unincorporated Shelby County and Lakeland.

Zimmer said officials want to make sure any kinks or bugs are worked out during quality control and quality assurance before the rest of the county is mapped out.

The mapping will go far beyond existing maps such as Google. In addition to a route-able road network, the maps will include fire hydrant locations, speed bumps, one way streets, school zones, cell towers, boat ramps and mile markers. The high-resolution panoramic images will have three-dimensional point data for every pixel.

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