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Davey Resource Group (DRG) began the development of TreeKeeper� Work Planning Software (WPS) for Conectiv, now part of Pepco Holdings, Inc., as a cooperative effort in 1998. The current version of the WPS captures data in multiple layers using a combination of point, line, and polygon features.
Base map layers are provided by the Conectiv geographic information systems (GIS) department as extracts from its Smallworld GIS. The WPS software uses an Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) platform, and the data is captured in a shape file format. WPS can interface with a pocket global positioning system (GPS) receiver, allowing the user to continuously monitor exact location.
WPS is currently used to plan all vegetation management work on the utility�s system, both distribution and transmission. DRG provides the software, support, and contract utility foresters, including a transmission planning coordinator who is responsible for planning and auditing all transmission vegetation management operations in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The software allows the planning coordinator to prescribe and quantify all right-of-way vegetation management, including vertical acres of side trimming, tree removals, acres of brush, and individual tree treatments where necessary in urban or suburban areas. The DRG planning coordinator is responsible for identifying the work and prescribing a Best Management Practices treatment. He also is able to add features for areas of special concern, such as wetlands, streams and rivers, access, and invasive species.
In a cooperative venture with Conectiv, DRG, and Delaware Department of Natural Resources, the software was used to map more than 700 acres of coastal marsh where native vegetation had been completely displaced by phragmites. Mapping of the areas was done in a helicopter in less than three hours using the WPS software and a GPS receiver. The shape files that were generated were then given to the treatment contractor and loaded into their navigation system. Using the maps as a guide, pilots unfamiliar with wetland vegetation were able to successfully treat all target areas in one day of helicopter aerial spraying.
For more information, contact Doug Wade at (518) 372-4206, or call (800) 828-8312.
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