Digital Lodgement of Cadastral Survey Data in Australia - Centre for ...

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The New South Wales questionnaire was organised by a joint Land Titles Office (LTO) and the former Land Information Centre (LIC) project team in collaboration with Professor John Fryer of the University of Newcastle. The questionnaire was sent to 1221 surveyors, with a 48.7% rate of return. The closing date for returns was 25 July 1997 (Fryer, 1997). Analysis of results was conducted by Fryer who provided the project team with a summary of statistics and list of comments. The questionnaire was only one page long and featured eight questions (seven multiple choice), regarding issues such as use of computers for data collection and/or drawing of plans; type of software that was used; the types of remote computer communication used; and ideas on the positives and negatives of electronic plan lodgement (Fryer, 1997). The South Australian questionnaire was carried out by Mr Mark Barnes of the Land Services Group, within the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, with the closing date of returns being December 1994. It was circulated to 47 recipients including private firms, individuals and government departments involved in plan preparation and the lodgement processes. A 62% return rate was achieved (Land Services Group, 1994). This questionnaire was substantially longer than those done in Victorian and New South Wales, being seven pages long, and consisted of many short-answer questions, rather than multiple choice. Questions covered both technical areas and the recipients’ opinions towards the issue of digital lodgement (Land Services Group, 1994). Results of Questionnaire The NSW questionnaire showed a large disparity in the numbers of returns from sole practitioners (12.4%), with the mailing list indicating that 43.4% of registered surveyors fell into this category (Fryer, 1997). The Victorian questionnaire showed that 14% were from sole practitioners, however it is not known how many of these were actually asked to complete the questionnaire. The South Australian questionnaire did not indicate the type of recipients that responded. Access to Computer With regards to access to a computer, there were 89% of surveyors in NSW that had access to a PC, with a further 8% having the availability of a workstation (Fryer, 1997). This is very similar to Victoria, where 93% use PCs , and the remaining 7% use workstations. In both the Victorian and NSW questionnaires, a PC was defined as a personal computer which is IBM compatible (as opposed to a Macintosh), which may be stand alone or networked. A workstation was defined as a computer, usually connected to a network, possibly running UNIX. Again, the South Australian questionnaire did not include a question on the surveyors’ access to computers, although it was shown that 56% had little concern with their technical capabilities if digital lodgement was introduced, the conclusion being that these recipients have already had sufficient exposure to computers (Land Services Group, 1994). This response was supported by another question which showed that only 4 of the 29 respondents had no computer facilities. Software The most commonly used software packages in New South Wales were Civilcad (43%), Landmark (20.5%), Autocad (52.5%), Microsoft Word (71%) and Word Perfect (25%). Other software packages in use included Liscad (12.5%), Foresite (9%), Geocomp (6.5%), ACS (6.5%) and Microstation (13.5%) (Fryer, 1997). In Victoria, the most popular geometry software were Liscad (50%), Autocad (47%) and Geocomp (30%). Taking into account the number of actual licences each company had for software, Microstation, Autocad and Geocomp had approximately the same number of users. In the cases of both New South Wales and Victoria, the software percentages sum to more than 100% as many companies have several different software types running. South Australia showed very similar results to Victoria, whereby Liscad and Autocad were the most popular software used, both with 22%. SDRMap was the next with 11%, followed by Geocomp (9%), Wescom, Foresight and Caddsman, all with 6% each (Land Services Group, 1994). Lodgement Practices One question that only featured on the Victorian questionnaire regarded the size of subdivisions carried out by each surveying company, which was deemed quite important, as digital lodgement becomes progressively more relevant as the number of lots in a plan increases. In order to gain the most feasible results, these results were correlated with the size of the company (number of employees).
The most evident finding from this correlation is that as the company size increased, so did the number of multiple lot subdivisions (more than 20 lots). For instance, the majority of the companies with less than 5 employees submitted mostly plans of only 5 or less lots, whereas the companies with more than 10 employees submitted many plans of 20 or more lots. A significant finding was that there were 10 companies whose plans of 10 or more lots made up more than 50% of their plans lodged. This is important because current guidelines in Victoria require that subdivisions containing more than 10 lots have to be accompanied by a digital plan. Another notable finding was that 14 companies submitted more than 50% of plans that were two lot subdivisions. This is important to know because it is easier to manually update files for two lot subdivisions, rather than trying to enter a plan in digital form. Preparation and transfer of plans The percentage of surveyors in New South Wales who used computers to complete all their plans was around 41%, although this figure was influenced downwards by those who prepared small subdivisions manually. This is comparable to Victoria, where 31% of surveyors prepared all plans by computer. For transferring data, 70% of surveyors in NSW used floppy disks, whilst 57% used modems and sometimes used electronic mail for this task. In Victoria, computer usage seems to be higher with 89% of surveyors using floppy disks, 70% using modems, and 59% using email. The results of the NSW survey did not indicate how many surveyors had access to the Internet, whereas currently in Victoria more than half have access (52%). A similar question in the South Australian questionnaire showed that 76% of the respondents would prefer to transfer digital data directly via modem, if this service was available. Only 17% stated that they would not transfer data in this way, and 7% did not respond (Land Services Group, 1994). Comments by surveyors The Victorian and New South Wales questionnaires both dealt with the benefits and problems of digital lodgement in the latter part of the survey. Firstly the positives will be discussed. The most commonly mentioned benefits on the New South Wales survey were the speeding up of the lodgement process; time savings; producing more legible plans; and updating and improving the cadastre. This was similar for the Victorian questionnaire, with the most popular benefits being time and money savings, less paper, easier data retrieval, easier amendment of plans, and increased accuracy of data. Although many thought that digital lodgement would provide many benefits, several disadvantages were also noted. Nearly 50% of the NSW responses indicated concern for the security of the electronic file after it left the surveyor. Similarly in Victoria, 25% were concerned about this issue, with another 23% concerned about intellectual property, and 27% worried about the compatibility of software. Despite the high profile given to the matter of intellectual property, less than 2% of NSW surveyors mentioned this topic. The South Australian questionnaire contained various questions regarding the recipients’ opinions throughout the survey. One question revealed that 83% indicated that digital lodgement should be optional, with another 14% stating that it should not be optional. 3% did not respond to the question. The other primary concerns that were highlighted included validation procedures (72% were highly concerned), accuracy/quality concerns (72%), legislative requirements (69%), liability (71%), with about half concerned about copyright issues and costs involved. Compatibility of software, and the security of data were also mentioned (Land Services Group, 1994). Summary These results show that the respondents from the three states (generally surveyors), are already proficient in computer usage, with all surveyors having or using a computer in their workplace. Coupled with this, 66% of all Victorian surveyors already own and use a modem, which will be essential when digital lodgement is introduced in that state. This level of proficiency with electronic transmission of data (including email and the Internet) is important as this will mean less training in this particular area. Many survey companies in Victoria and New South Wales already use computers to prepare many of their plans, with a large majority of those in South Australia feeling comfortable with the technology. For example, an average of 84% of all survey plans are fully or partly prepared digitally in Victoria (Falzon, 1998). Even more importantly, about 80% of surveyors already submit
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Digital Lodgement of Cadastral Survey Data in Australia - Centre for ...

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