CRANBERRY TWP — A police officer gets a call to a house, and as he arrives his computer shows him information about that location.

The public works crew uses a GPS computer program to get the exact measurements and location for a township project in one of the parks without the need to hire an engineer.

A resident gets more information about his house and others in his neighborhood.

These are a few examples of how the Geographic Information System, GIS, intersects with the township’s computer system to provide information to municipal workers and residents alike.

Doug Cloutier, GIS manager, spoke to the township supervisors Thursday about how township, state and federal databases, which cover municipal water, sanitary, stormwater, transportation and parks infrastructure, are kept up to date and used to create different print and online maps.

The GIS system, which has a $103,605 budget, has been used for 10 to 15 years and has been growing over that time, said Adam Osterrieder, director of information technology.

Osterrieder compared GIS to a “data warehouse,” that keeps information on all the assets of the township and feeds into other systems. He pointed out that GIS helps every department, Osterrieder said.

The three main functions of GIS are map production, Web applications, and survey and GPS capabilities, Cloutier said.

Cloutier said the department produces more than 200 paper or digital maps per year. The maps can show any data such as utilities, water lines, parcels, and streets.

“It allows the departments to provide their data internally or to the public accurately,” Cloutier said.

Osterrieder gave the example of the fire department being able to locate the fire hydrants after it snows so they can be dug out for safety reasons. Another example is the township being able to pinpoint utilities and when people come in for building purposes, they can look at a map to see the zoning of the property.

The Web application is another way to provide GIS data, Cloutier said.

The main Web application used by the public is called Property Finder, he said. The main function is for residents to go to the web page to look up information on their properties.

Osterrieder said real estate agents also use this application.

There is another application called Internal Data Viewer, which is for internal use and shows more information on the township’s assets, Cloutier said.

The police department also uses GIS data. Cloutier said the Cranberry Streets Application is available in all of the police cars, which allows officers to get location information quickly. An officer can type in an address or business and will be able to get information on the property.

The GIS department also has another internal application called the Marcellus Shale Drill Site Map, which shows all the drill sites within five miles of the township.

“If you click on the drill site, attached is the drill permit so you can get more information on the drill site,” he said. “This is a way we can keep track of all the drilling activity close to the township.”

The GIS Department has developed a Community Days Application, Cloutier said. People can visit the site and click on a vendor booth and find out who is registered. Internally, parks and recreation employees can go to the site and modify the data to show who has reserved a booth.

Cloutier said developers are required to provide accurate AutoCAD files to the department.

“The reason why that is important to GIS is because those AutoCAD files integrate well with GIS,” he said. “So we can add those AutoCAD files to the GIS and update the GIS information from that.”

Now the department is working on more mobile friendly Web applications, Cloutier said. This will allow people to access the data over the Web on tablets and smart phones more efficiently.