Policy Context and Legal Framework

The project is developed within the Regional Plan approved by the Regional Council (Del. CR 68, 11 July 2007) in implementation of LR 01/2004 (art. 7).

This is a program for the promotion and development of e-government and information society, in order to:

• ensure new rights of citizenship,
• develop digital services for the development and competitiveness.

The regional program is divided into four thematic areas depending on the sectors of the Region and definesobjectives, actions and specific results to be achieved:

1. e.community -  policies for access and participation: activities  replying to the topic of network, its services and its repositories of knowledge, as opportunity to exercise own rights of citizenship in safe environments and  spaces within which  encouraging  participation and sharing of knowledge;
2. e.services - policies for the provision of community services: actions to increase organizational innovation and use of information technology and communication in a PA, that aims to provide citizens and businesses efficient, transparent and integrated services;
3. e.competitivity - policies for sustainable economic development: interventions to enhance the value and competitiveness through the use of Information and Communication Technologies and their use in the production - marketing - sales chain;
4. enablers infrastructures - actions to complete and enhance the technological infrastructure of RTRT (www.rtrt.it) through the deployment of broadband, the sharing of guaranteed service levels, the creation of interoperable and secure systems.

Impact

Managing data with coordinates, published on a map,  you can access information easily, using address and location as access keys. Thus any person or entity can search for information by  municipality, district, or specific address, can access different but geographically close information (e.g.  museums,  libraries,  courts).
This system helps to reduce  the "digital-divide": by the map you arrive in a simple way to get information on the  PAAS "Assisted Access Point to Services and Internet": places which provide assistance free of charge in using on-line government services.

The geo-referenced system  offers  a social service too allowing to access points involved in assistance against violence and abuse. Moreover it promotes  education in law for schools and all affected  public and private structures. Health care companies use geo-referencing to the section level of a census, for statistical analysis and forecasting. The Department of Statistics produces tables and thematic maps on statistical indicators on population in Tuscany.

Lessons learnt

The large use of geo-referenced data means that almost all information systems require, even outside of areas typically GIS, the integration of cartographic coordinates, and store the civic address in a normalized form. This allows interoperability with maps and other data provided with coordinates. Other forms of reference to the territory, such as codes Istat (eg. code of the Tuscany Region and the provinces or municipalities or census sections) can be associated with alphanumeric data, and this provides a technological basis for purely statistical or other kinds analysis. So we can say that in our system is easy:

• use the street address to locate the data on the map;
• access to information through cartographic coordinates;
• use the map as a  shared place querying heterogeneous data.