Smartphone Application for Road Rangers Tucker Brown Roger Strain Robert W. Heller, Ph.D. Southwest Research Institute San Antonio, Texas USA

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers2 Florida DOT Road Ranger Road Rangers –Provide free highway assistance service –Roving vehicles patrol congested areas and high incident locations Benefits –Incident reduction –Remove road debris –Incident duration reduction –Assist Florida Highway Patrol –Increase safety of incident scenes

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers3 Road Ranger Activities Reporting Activities reporting generations –Paper form –Windows XP tablet –Hardened laptop Natural progression to Smartphone

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers4 Objectives Provide live connectivity between Road Rangers and TMC staff –Minimal data transmission cost –Minimal device footprint Monitor Road Ranger field activities –Track GPS position –Receive event updates Economical 4

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers5 SunGuide Overview Modular system integrating many technologies Reuse of existing Road Ranger support

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers6 Choice of Platform Main consumer mobile device environments –iOS (Apple) –Android (Google, various manufacturers) – Others (less supported / popular) Android benefits – Easier internal deployment – More device options for future selection – More carrier support at time of decision

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers7 Mobile Communication Based on web services –Standard port 80 traffic –No persistent connection needed Based on existing RR driver Security concerns –Username / password required to access server –SSL encryption used over HTTPS

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers8 Managing Connectivity Mobile data connections drop frequently –Web services mitigate this issue –Requests easily retried If request fails, it is queued –Retransmitted when communications resume –After multiple failures, user is prompted whether to continue retrying or abandon message User is shown data as if all requests succeed –Allows Road Ranger to continue working

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers9 Mobile Functionality Road Rangers must be aware of more than just the application –Complex interfaces may distract from nearby traffic while road side Limited functionality reduces training burden More complex data typically better related over phone or radio to TMC personnel –Less time staring at screen –More time watching surroundings

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers10 User Interface Design Small screen real estate Touch-friendly controls Alternate colors –Day time light background –Night vision black background

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers11 Field Testing Initial testing performed by developers –While beneficial, does not fully represent operational conditions Early software releases provided to District personnel –One or two users loaded initial releases to test in actual field conditions –Once confidence was established, testing extended to additional users –Some actual Road Ranger drivers included

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers12 Deployment RR issued Android phones with SPARR –Trained to use phone & application First weeks – Some users still called too often, (use app) – Some users didn’t call in things that weren’t covered by app Discovered value of phone vehicle mount

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers13 Results In RR hands, not truck Cost savings, time savings Integrated AVL, better dispatching, multiple dispatchers Intuitive, user friendly application, start simple add more later More accurate time stamps RR report more events and details No handwritten log transcription RR not dependent on TMC operator availability

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers14 Future Enhancements –Small tablet (larger screen) –Increased functionality Pictures? Google Map style directions Dynamic Geofences –Alert if operators leaves event without departing the event from the app

October Smartphone Application for Road Rangers15 Questions? Tucker Brown Contact Information: Southwest Research Institute PO Drawer Culebra Road San Antonio, TX