| Wireless and Government: Wireless for Government Employees
In a previous article, we surveyed how governments are using wireless to reach their citizens. In this article, we look at how governments are using wireless to improve their own operations.
Road Warriors
Government performs a large variety of measurement and inspection functions, from building inspection, health and safety, pothole assessment, etc. This is conducted by employees who spend most of their time in the community at large, and likely do not have an office.
Mobile inspection is a textbook wireless application. The inspector can capture information directly onto a PDA, query additional information about prior inspections, and can advise dispatch that the job is complete. With suitable devices, the inspector can take and submit pictures of the inspection site, print reports and official notices, and capture digital signatures.
This scenario provides several operational improvements in terms of reduced cycle time, and improved data quality and timeliness compared to a pen and paper system. These operational benefits in turn translate into business statements about the public good. In a real-life example, the City of Toronto reduced the time to shut down unclean restaurants from six weeks to days, protecting the public health to this extent.
Case Workers
Social workers can now capture information about cases directly into PDAs so that they can provide accurate, categorized information directly to their agency, with similar operational benefits as in the building inspector example.
This solution lends itself well to situations where the information being captured is well structured, and the environment supports the use of a PDA. Visits that have to be documented in free-form detail might be more easily done with pen-and-paper capture of observations. Also, some workers have felt that their lack of fluency with a PDA might intrude into the flow of a delicate interview situation.
Asset Tracking and Fleet Management
Most levels of government have fleets of vehicles ranging from snow clearing, garbage collection, public transit vehicles and limousines. Wireless location based services (GPS and/or terrestrial networks) allow vehicle locations to be tracked and location information to be recorded. This information can be used in many ways:
- Raw positional information can be used to support dispatch and scheduling functions, and in the case of transit information, provide real-time schedule information
- Detailed positional information recorded over a period of time can be analyzed to determine average speeds, wait and response times, duration of driver rest periods, etc.
- When combined with vehicle operational characteristics, it can be used to establish compliance with policies such as recommended warm-up times and adherence to engine-off policies.
- In settings with many vehicles in close proximity, it can be used to identify collision risks and even to shut-off vehicle engines if vehicle approach no-go zones.
One example is Mosquito Control in Florida, where a wireless solution helps manage a fleet of 61 vehicles spraying insecticide to control the spread of West Nile disease. The system captures location and movement information, and the application of insecticide. This information is used to direct the spraying program in real-time, and to provide historical analyses.
EMS / Law Enforcement
EMS have requirements for both high and low data transfer, as well as especially high reliability. Examples of high data requirements are pictures and videos of suspects and crime scenes; while low volume data includes dispatch and call status information. EMS teams would often like floor plans of buildings to better plan their response.
A number of network approaches have been adopted. Sometimes a carrier-only approach is proposed, but even the EDGE networks do not provide the high data rates needed for pictures and videos. Sometimes a combination of public carrier networks and hotspots is proposed. The carrier network is used for lower speed data updates, while private hotspots at fire halls and police stations transfer rich content and reports at 802.11 speeds.
There are concerns about the quality of service that the carriers provide over their shared network and their ability to guarantee and dedicated bandwidth to EMS in disaster situations. To address these concerns about QoS (Quality of Service) and reliability, some EMS services have turned to Mesh Networking. This approach to wireless networking provides high performance and very reliable connectivity through a network of redundant wireless routers. There are a number of different mesh scenarios; for a Special Report on “Mesh Networking”, send a email to enquiries@greyfriars.net with “Special Report on Mesh” as the subject.
Facility Workers
These are people who spend their workday in a government facility. Facilities range from maintenance yards to animal care shelters.
In a maintenance scenario, a department might provide a high-speed wireless network so that a worker can check manuals, repair instructions, and parts availability at the point of maintenance. The wireless device does not have to be a handheld, and some aircraft maintenance solutions use a full-featured desktop mounted on a trolley. The savings come through not having to spend time traveling to the office to access information in manuals.
Aldermen
Aldermen are examples of corridor warriors, people who work at their place of work but are seldom at their desks. An 802.11 network in council chambers would allow aldermen access to their staff, information, and desktop functionality while in session. Many proposals along these lines also provide for public access to the internet from the same location.
References
Mosquito Control in the Florida Keys http://www.egov4dev.org/mgovapplic.htm
Social Worker http://www.nrcitcw.org/ta/ttt/ttt_handheld.html
Law Enforcement and Mesh http://www.meshnetworks.com/pages/applications/law_enforcement.htm |