Saint-Moritz is one of the world's most famous
holiday destinations. Chic, elegant and exclusive, with a distinct cosmopolitan
ambience, it is located on the southern side of the Alps in Engadin (Switzerland)
1,856 m above sea level. Although the town has a population of only 5,600,
this expands in the season to include some 3,000 staff and 250,000 tourists
with 1.2 million overnight stays. This goes to explain utility suppliers'
high outlays for the manual drawing of planning materials and for annual updates
in the fields of water (some 50km pipelines, 650 valves and 200 hydrants),
sewage (some 55km sewage water lines, 45 km meteor water) and electricity
(300km cables, 50km street lighting with transformer stations, distribution
boxes and home connections), all of which brought little in the way of value-add.
So
it was decided to install a geoinformation system (GIS) to provide multiple-use
planning materials and documentation – also to include "general drainage
planning". At the power plant, planning called for use to be made of the
GIS as comprehensive "personnel-independent" line documentation, as
required by the supervisory authorities under provisions of statute. For the
GIS launch, an external advisor was consulted. This was the engineering company
Kurt Lienhard AG based in Buchs-Aarau, which has been offering consultancy services
since 1991 in the introduction and implementation of GIS applications for mid-sized
and large public utilities.
The Saint-Moritz project was implemented in phases, being accompanied step by
step by the digitizing of official surveying activities. The project has been
in the utilization phase since February 2001. Data are available to the entire
workforce at all times via 6 information stations and include not only the data
primarily input for pipelines and cables in the fields of water, sewage and
electricity, but also information on official surveying, zoning plans, water
protection and danger areas.
