Implementing TraCS In Georgia 29 th Int’l Traffic Records Forum July 16, 2003 Presented by Bill Youngblood State Traffic Records Coordinator

Background All of our TRs are collected and moved on paper. Our Traffic Records Coordinating Committee (TRCC) has been active about 3½ years. Our objectives are to reduce costs and improve quality, timeliness, and utility of all Traffic Records (TRs). These objectives are best satisfied by an integrated fully electronic TR System, from collection through analysis. Top priority is crash records - followed by citations, EMS run records, hospital discharge records, etc. Priorities are from the bottom up; i.e., beginning with collection.

Georgia’s Unique (Perhaps) Situation TRCC inherited a crisis with our crash records. Corrective initiative came from the TRCC. Our TRCC has no budget or authority, and not even a formal existence. Department of Motor Vehicle Safety (DMVS) created after the TRCC sponsored program well underway. GDOT (mostly) and GOHS have funded all TR Strategic Plan efforts to date, including TraCS. Our program has been driven mostly by GDOT and the larger metro Atlanta PDs.

Why TraCS? We began our TR System development by looking at all known data collection products. We chose TraCS for several reasons: Well designed and stable product that officers liked, Capable of data collection for all police reports, SDK would allow us to develop Georgia reports internally, Validation rules could assure complete and accurate reports at the source, No license fee, and freely distributable within the State, Potential for national and jointly funded maintenance and desired enhancements.

State Efforts Required to Adapt & Deploy TraCS Develop the following components for each report type include: Input forms, validation rules, output reports, database tables, local report processing. Develop training materials/courses for users, supervisors, system administrators, and developers. Develop electronic transfer capabilities to RMSs and the receivers/users of each report type – two ends of each link.

Status of Efforts to Adapt & Deploy TraCS (2½ years after start) Crash Report Fully developed and tested – currently being deployed. One metro Atlanta agency fully trained (by TraCS staff) and will begin department wide use in Sept Other agencies in various stages of preparation for deployment. Still working on electronic transfer to DMVS. Prototype Map Location Tool developed. Citation is developed and ready for pilot testing. Currently developing a potential statewide Crime/Incident reports (none currently exist). One police agency has developed local crime Incident reports, which are being used operationally.

Major Issues We Have Encountered (Many in the past year) Auxiliary software had to be developed to print current crash form, and perform anticipated electronic transfer. Our initial pilot agency championed TraCS but had to drop out over RMS interfacing issues – very important issue. Our DMVS is new, very busy, and a reluctant TraCS partner. This situation has been very divisive in our TRCC. Serious disagreements between DMVS and other TRCC members on testing the TraCS crash report. TRCC has no legitimate role in crime reports, but police agencies want crime incident form(s) on TraCS. Many issues with statewide GIS map data for Location Tool. TRCC forced into suspended state over GOHS problems.

Lessons Learned and Benefits Experienced A dedicated, skilled development team is needed to meet a reasonable schedule. Validation rules, which are critical to improved data quality, require the most time, effort, and skill. A non-supportive DMVS can impede acceptance and slow things down significantly. Determination, hard work, and persistence are absolutely necessary in this situation. Growing multi-state involvement and sharing of enhancement ideas and costs have been critical.

Some of the Major Issues and Objectives That Remain Creating a more effective/cooperative/supportive TRCC. Obtaining long term funding for our TraCS support team. Moving TraCS data in and out of local RMSs – must develop leverage over RMS vendors. Electronic transfer of crash reports to DMVS. Development of a statewide TraCS Incident Report. Gaining support of Courts and Criminal Justice entities in TRCC and TraCS efforts. Assuring long term accurate/current statewide GIS map with attributes desired by all users.

Obvious TraCS Advantages In addition to the advantages of any electronic collection system, the use of a common tool can: Save many millions of dollars in development costs for State and Agency unique systems, Allow joint funding of maintenance & enhancements, saving more millions of dollars, and Encourage the use of common forms and data elements through savings in development costs. TraCS allows the development and application of powerful validation rules at the source to dramatically improve data quality.