After taking part in a competitive tender process, CARIS is pleased to announce that it has been awarded the National Survey Storage System project from Rijkswaterstaat.

Rijkswaterstaat, the executive body of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment in the Netherlands, has several responsibilities: ensuring the safe and smooth flow of traffic on roads and waterways; protection against flooding; providing sufficient, clean water; and supplying reliable and useful information to stakeholders. Because the Netherlands has one of the most advanced and busy waterway networks in the world, the best possible management is essential to maintain this important economic driver. The management of the waterways is not only important to the Netherlands’ economy, but also neighbouring Germany and Belgium.

CARIS software will be utilized in the processing, storage and delivery of the huge volumes of data generated to keep the waterways running smoothly. The data is used to support good dredging practices, to assess the state of maintenance of the waterways, and for flood management and scientific research.

Geerten Blessing, managing director at CARIS Geographic Information Systems BV in the Netherlands, says, "I am pleased and proud that CARIS has been awarded the contract for the delivery of our commercial off the shelf solution, which will be used as a standard for Rijkswaterstaat throughout the Netherlands. This contract underlines for me the clear vision CARIS has, as well as the approach we have taken in providing optimal solutions to the hydrographic community. This is especially rewarding for our highly skilled staff, which have put a lot of dedication and expertise into the CARIS Ping-to-Chart solution of which CARIS Bathy DataBASE is an important part."

Rijkswaterstaat will be utilizing components of CARIS' Ping-to-Chart^TM solution for their National Survey Storage System. CARIS BASE Manager will be used to analyze the data, with the data then being stored on Bathy DataBASE servers connected to Oracle® Spatial databases. The CARIS Spatial Fusion Enterprise Server publishes this data, which can then be accessed by a Spatial Fusion Enterprise Viewer, as well as any other Open Geospatial Consortium compliant map client.

"I’m pleased that the project team of Rijkswaterstaat has found a future-proof solution with a broad customer base," says Esther Hoveling, project manager at Rijkswaterstaat. "With this commercial off the shelf product we can implement the solution in a short time and, because of its interoperability, we will be able to connect it to our application architecture and retain the agility that modern government agencies require. We look forward to a fruitful collaboration".

The National Survey Storage System is expected to have more than 100 Rijkswaterstaat users deployed at 10 regional departments throughout the Netherlands. In addition to the software, CARIS will provide training, at least seven years of technical support and, together with MX Systems, the expertise for data migration to the new system.