The Port of Beaumont Uses ArcGIS StoryMaps to Communicate Capital Investments to Decision-Makers

The Port of Beaumont in Texas is engaged in a major capital expansion to enlarge and improve its operations. The port has benefited from public and private investment totaling nearly $7 billion since 2013, and work is ongoing to build marine and rail facilities, add dock infrastructure, and increase overall capacity in a capital investment program that amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars each year. More recently, the port has been using a geographic information system (GIS)-based application to tell decision-makers and the public about numerous and complex changes needed for the port to remain safe and efficient. The port leveraged ArcGIS StoryMaps (included with ArcGIS Enterprise) to combine maps, 3D scenes, embedded content, multimedia, and more into dynamic and interactive narratives. 

The Port of Beaumont is the seventh-largest port in the US by tonnage. The deep-water facility also ranks first in the world in terms of the amount of US military equipment handled, being the headquarters of the US Army's 842nd Transportation Battalion. Located in southeast Texas, the port is connected to the Gulf of Mexico by a 42-mile stretch of the Sabine-Neches Waterway—itself the nation's third-busiest waterway in terms of tonnage—which is currently the subject of a $1.1 billion deepening project. Begun in 2017, this work is expected to take 12–15 years to complete. 

Among the port's facilities are a roll-on/roll-off dock; 118 acres of open storage; 574,710 square feet of covered storage; rail storage, and a 1,100-foot-diameter turning basin. It is also home to one of the largest mobile harbor cranes in the Gulf of Mexico region. With three general cargo terminals, a liquid bulk terminal, and a dry bulk terminal, the port generates annual revenues in excess of $40 million. Direct employment amounts to nearly 7,000 people, with another over 19,000 involved in port-related activities.

Brandon Bergeron, director of engineering, holds responsibility for the capital improvement program and various major maintenance activities. He describes how, upon joining the port, one of his first tasks was to present the next year's capital improvement program to the board of commissioners. At each annual workshop, various actions—including proposed capital improvements—are discussed. During his first outing, Bergeron laid out proposed changes by using PowerPoint. This, he says, amounted to "a few drawings on slides accompanied by printed handouts." He continued to use PowerPoint slides for the next couple of years until port leaders decided to engage with Esri, gain product licenses, and start teaching themselves about what GIS could offer. "[Using ArcGIS] StoryMaps just seemed like a clever way to present things and I really wanted to capitalize on that," Bergeron continued. 

"Our board of commissioners is a diverse group consisting of a bank president, the general manager of a rice mill, a nonprofit leader and entrepreneur, a retired local educator, a Harvard graduate and current dean of students at a local private school, and a successful business professional . . . all intelligent and accomplished in their own right," said Bergeron. "Due to their many responsibilities, our commissioners have a limited time in which they can process the intricacies of each port project, all filled with port nomenclature and jargon. To ensure the best use of their time, we saw the development of a capital improvement plan story [in ArcGIS StoryMaps] as an opportunity to present a lot of technical information in a relatively short window of time, in an easy-to-follow format. [ArcGIS StoryMaps] was a game changer in the way projects are presented to the board." The result is engaging and educational. It enables the port to better inform decision-makers and meet its infrastructure development and rehabilitation needs. "The best thing I can do is put [the information] on a map—show them the scale of the project, what it will look like, and add some descriptions alongside the budget and schedule," Bergeron added. "Being able to share these details while they're looking at things in the real world as part of a virtual port tour is an incredibly valuable tool to me."

Lean staffing dictated that the ArcGIS StoryMaps story would be largely built by employees themselves, using Esri's online tutorials and other educational assets. This approach meant that those with knowledge of the port could create something that precisely reflected their knowledge and needs. It has taken around three years to get the ArcGIS StoryMaps story to its current state, and a major factor in its current level of maturity was the pandemic lockdown: the economic slowdown meant that staff could focus on learning GIS.

Researching the information that has gone into the ArcGIS StoryMaps solution was complicated and took time. Port staff met externally meetings with the City of Beaumont, which has infrastructure, such as stormwater drain lines, that passes through the port to the Neches River. In some instances, the effort involved calling long-retired maintenance superintendents for help to locate the necessary drawings. The Port of Beaumont is old, dating back to the early 1900s, and some original drawings were little more than back-of-a-napkin sketches done by engineers in the 1960s and had later been redrawn several times.

With so much often-redundant infrastructure sitting underground, a primary set of drawings needed to be compiled that, once completed, could be perpetually updated. The port retained a consultant for the data-gathering process. Bergeron needed to receive information in a standardized form, so instead of creating a GIS map from scratch, the consultant produced shapefiles that could then be added into ArcGIS Enterprise.

Gaining additional licenses in an organization with little previous experience of GIS required a multistep approach, and introduction to the technology's capabilities was gradual training to help build staff's confidence and provide support. This included, for instance, creating maps that showed the sizes of docks, storage shed capacities, and so on that were easily clickable and usable by individuals during meetings and discussions. 

The board of commissioners responded very favorably to the ArcGIS StoryMaps story, and there have been several requests to use it elsewhere—as members are often asked to explain recent and proposed developments, it affords them the same insights and ease of use enjoyed by Bergeron. He sees this enthusiasm as potentially opening the door for significantly increased use of GIS to support many different activities. Examples include operations dashboards and projects supporting future applications for the US Department of Transportation (DOT) Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) and Department of Homeland Security funding.

The ArcGIS StoryMaps story has brought greater buy-in as people can see better what is happening or going to happen. Bergeron explained, "We can show them the results of the funding that they've provided and we can also show them what will happen even before the first shovel is turned—'Here's where it is in the real world; let's zoom in and out; let's look at some details and scroll through some photos so you can see why this project is needed.'"

Management enthusiasm matched and even surpassed that of the board. With the direct support of the port's director of trade development, a new ArcGIS StoryMaps story is already being developed to showcase and market the port's facilities and terminals.

With so many foreign trade zones—which can shift and morph over the course of different projects and usages—within the port, lease management is another area that is being considered. Bergeron notes that information sharing with the US Department of Homeland Security and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement would be greatly enhanced.

Other benefits of the ArcGIS StoryMaps story include time savings and faster response to outside requests. Bergeron must deal with nearly constant calls from contractors and consultants, and the ArcGIS StoryMaps story enables him to handle them in greater numbers. The information on it is public, so queries on infrastructure locations and statuses can be dealt with simply by sharing an online link, effectively enabling self-guided port tours.

Using the GIS has also saved time and frustration for contractors called on-site to deal with maintenance issues. In addition to the ArcGIS StoryMaps story, the Port of Beaumont has also created a utility map. Using ArcGIS Field Maps, a mobile data collection app, on-site contractors can immediately know just what infrastructure is beneath them, which gives them a better idea of exactly where every asset is and how best to deal with it.

In terms of the novelty of the application, Bergeron is modest about the Port of Beaumont's achievements. Other ports have used ArcGIS StoryMaps to illustrate and market their strategic planning, and he was inspired by some of those efforts. He therefore refuses to take sole credit.

Where he does differentiate is in the self-taught element of his port's ArcGIS StoryMaps story's creation. As nonexperts when the project commenced, he and his team approached things differently from how they might have had they been fully versed in GIS from the start. Anecdotal comments from peers in other ports have highlighted how, on occasion, using specialists can result in overly complex, difficult-to-use solutions with unnecessary capabilities.

The Port of Beaumont's ArcGIS StoryMaps story and its features have, by contrast, attracted interest and positive reviews from peers.

"My counterparts in other ports have reached out via the American Association of Port Authorities Port Professional Manager program," said Bergeron. "They see the value in [ArcGIS] StoryMaps because they face many of the same dilemmas. It's hard for many people to understand engineering drawings, but when you put a rendering next to a photo on a map it suddenly all makes sense."