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Project Goal
Since September 2015 almost 30,000 refugees were distributed over the main train station in Frankfurt which functioned as the first arrival point for additional trains. These trains only transported refugees from the German border and the main refugee hub in Munich to Hesse. At peak times nearly 500 refugees arrived in Frankfurt per day. About 25,000 refugees were passed on to the central arrival area for refugees (CAAR) in Giessen and about 70 outposts of the CAAR in 25 counties of Hesse. In reconcilement with the ministry of interior we had to coordinate these transfers. 5,000 refugees remained in Frankfurt for whom accommodation had to be found.Business Problem Solved
Frankfurt started to place the refugee shelters all over the city. Now we had to make a summary in which area a school or kindergarten could be used as an accommodation. Our GIS tool helped us to find appropriate locations which are able to give home to the refugees, short-term and long-term. We had a lot of regular living areas and a larger number of hotels to place the refugees in the city area. In addition we implemented transitional shelters in sport halls. The GIS tool spread those locations evenly over Frankfurt to prevent the formation of ghettos. It also showed us schools nearby which could provide special language-education classes.
Technology Implemented
We decided to create a tool with the Esri ArcGIS Online system. With that tool we were able to add the actual data from the outposts and analyze them to distribute the refugees to available outpost spaces in Hesse. By using the GIS data in stock of the survey-of-land department of Frankfurt we could implement a high performing tool in a very short period of time. By modifying the attributes the tool could display additional information of locations so that we were able to ensure adequate shelter areas for the refugees.
Subsequently we added the borders of the school districts in our tool to create an overview of which educational institutions in Frankfurt could be taken into charge to provide education.
Development Team Biography
In the administrative department for refugee management in Frankfurt there are two GIS-analyst on staff. Sven Dunkel (former member of the Fire Department Frankfurt – FDF) has been working with Esri GIS tools since 1998. He developed some GIS-tools for the FDF. A young GIS analyst, Geerd de Bruijn, has been working for the department since February 2016. Both are still working to close the gap between current data performance and the need to create the right data at the right time.