When first-year Francesca Meninger goes to her Chi Omega pledge meetings, she walks in a group through the alley leading up to the sorority house. Lighting is sparse, allowing, as Meninger put it, “figures in the alley” to remain in shadow. “It’s not necessarily a threat, but I’ve been a little nervous walking through the alley.” Walking from Hamilton Hall to Global Scholars Hall, Meninger felt similar anxiety. “I’ve been a little bit stressed out,” she said, at the prospect of walking through the dark.
Campus Geographic Information System and Mapping have a map for that.
As the days continue to get darker, the University of Oregon’s Safety and Risk Services utilize mapping and geospatial technology to get students where they need to go safely. The Safety at Night Map uses student input to keep the designated well-lit paths safe and secure.
Campus GIS and Mapping is a department within Safety and Risk Services at the University of Oregon. Its mission, according to its site description, is to “foster a smarter, safer, and more efficient campus by providing accurate and reliable geospatial data, technologies, and software systems for the entire campus community.”
Or, as GIS Director Ken Kato said, “We’re the map nerds.”
The GIS and Mapping department worked to not only create a map that provided the best lit paths for night travelers, but record safety concerns. That was previously completed by night safety walks, where groups of students, police and Campus Planning and Facilities Management would patrol campus together. Marking concerning areas on a physical map, the department would turn the results into data, letting CPFM “chip away,” Kato said.
When Night Safety Walk attendance dropped, the department re-evaluated, considering whether virtual collaboration would be more effective. From that question came the Safety at Night app, created by GIS and Mapping.
The map, Enterprise Risk Management Project Manager Amanda Hatch said, is designed to be intuitive — “at your fingertips, so you know what to do.”
The Safety at Night Map runs off of collaboration on the program, what Kato called “crowdsourcing data.” If a student were to come across a possibly hazardous area, from lighting issues to trip hazards, the student would log the concern using the map program.
Dropping a virtual pin on the map of campus provided, followed by a brief description of the issue, sends the comment to a call log. From the call log, the job is assigned to the appropriate department, in order to evaluate and complete the work. Kato said, “99% of the actionable tasks can be completed by CPFM.”
Statistics provided by the Campus GIS and Mapping Department showed that, since November 2017, 247 pins have been dropped on the Night Safety Map. The majority of pins dropped are lighting-related, with 16 calls in November 2019.
When considering the efficacy of the map, Kato said, “It’s quite high; things get fixed.”
Spikes in the pin data table from September 2018 can be traced back to Hatch’s ERM work. The Strategic Enterprise Risk Management and Compliance Committee oversees the Enterprise Risk Management program. In 2018, Hatch noticed a series of pins dropped in areas outside of campus boundaries. The map is open to the public, not just students, allowing pins to be dropped elsewhere. A team, comprised of Safety and Risk Services, the Dean of Students, Eugene Police, and neighborhood associations, investigated and evaluated possible areas of lighting improvement.
Data was brought to SERMC, resulting in approval, among other things, to install street lights on Alder Street. “The Alder Street lights were the most expensive thing we did,” Hatch said.
The lights were said to be installed in the second week of December, according to Hatch. Her team is currently working with the city of Eugene to install lights along 18th avenue. “It’s a delicate balance,” she said, “some people want lights, some people don’t.”
Kato helped create the original campus map, nearly 17 years ago. Now, working on creating new maps for a variety of purposes, from tracking golf cart paths to trees on campus, he saw the value in the Night Safety Map. “People use the phrase ‘the room is so silent, you could hear a pin drop’,” Kato said, “but, to me, a pin-drop is powerful.”
