Municipio de Tampico Wins 2006 BE Award

The BE Awards of Excellence, which are selected by an independent jury of industry experts and presented at an evening ceremony during the annual BE Conference (www.be.org), honor the extraordinary work of Bentley users improving the worldâs infrastructure. These projects set benchmarks for their industries and showcase the imagination and technical mastery of the organizations that created them. Municipio de Tampicoâs project was part of a broader program to improve government and its services. The programâs goal was to reengineer administrative processes and introduce modern information technology to help government better meet the needs of its citizens. One area of particular concern was cadastre administration. This function has a direct impact not only on future infrastructure development, but also on the ability to assess property values and collect taxes. Because it lacked a GIS solution, the municipality was forced to rely on outdated maps and manually acquired information, much of which was incorrect. As a result, its information was only about 30 percent complete. With the implementation of its integrated cartographic system, Municipio de Tampico became the first municipality in Mexico to take advantage of 3D technology for cadastre administration. The project involved photogrammetric flights, a door-to-door census, verification of existing parcel information and comparisons with new information, and the incorporation within the database of roughly 90,000 properties. As a result of this effort, the municipality can now quickly identify all construction types within its boundaries and detail the public services available within each zone.As Fernando Azcárraga López, municipal president of Tampico, said, âOur new cadastral system is extremely valuable to the people of Tampico. It helps us reduce public expenditures, provides us with a secure database, and gives us a comprehensive accounting of all public services, urban development, and our property tax base to enable us to make better decisions regarding the future growth of our city.âUsing MicroStation GeoGraphics and Bentley PowerMap, Municipio de Tampico found it easy to integrate topographical information from the digital terrain model with cadastral financial information. MicroStation GeoGraphics provides all of the tools needed to quickly and efficiently search all of the data, and is totally integrated with the existing systems used by the municipality. As Juan Carlos Cervantes, cadastre subdirector, Municipio de Tampico, pointed out, âWe selected Bentley software for this project because of its versatile design capabilities, its ability to be integrated with databases such as SQL Server and Oracle, and its interoperability with other systems, including many of those used by our municipality.âBenefits of the new cadastral system to Municipio de Tampico and its citizens include: The planned return on investment from this project was about 12 months, but the new system paid for itself in less than six months. A substantial portion of the return came from an eight percent increase in property tax revenues, which resulted from the detection of more than 15,000 residential and commercial building structures omitted from the previous database. The citizens of Municipio de Tampico are enjoying increased administrative efficiency, which, for example, enables them to more quickly pay their taxes and secure cadastral information. In-person customer service time has decreased from three hours to under a half-hour, and the time required to arrange for a physical inspection of a property has dropped from three weeks to a week or less. Because Municipio de Tampico is located in a hurricane zone, citizens will also benefit from the municipalityâs ability to integrate its cadastral information with its hydrologic risk map. In the event of a hurricane, this will enable the municipality to identify secure zones and evacuation routes to minimize loss of life. For more information on Municipio de Tampicoâs winning project and all of the other 2006 BE Award projects, visit www.be.org/awards.

Author: Christine Byrne

Bio.: Bentley

For more information visit:

www.tampico.gob.mx