Government Technology - February 2008 - (Page 42)

justice S TAT E | L O C A L | F E D E R A L j j Synopsis: San Jose’s new eCitation system helps police officers issue more accurate tickets to motorists. Agency: San Jose Police Department. Technology: Speedsters Nabbing Intermec, 3i Infotech, eCitation system. Contact: Lt. Ruben Chavez, 408/277-4847, ruben.chavez@ sanjoseca.gov. San Jose, Calif., gets a head start on traffic violators with its new eCitation system. ack in 2006, the San Jose Police Department (SJPD) issued paper citations that took three weeks to process. But now, thanks to an electronic citation system implemented in 2007, officers issue more accurate tickets and the courts process them more quickly. Located in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, San Jose has long prided itself for being B FEB_08 technologically ahead of the game. So it should come as no surprise that in mid-2007, the SJPD brought some bad news to the city’s boozers and speed demons: The eCitation system — designed by Intermec Inc. in collaboration with 3i Infotech — was rolled out to more than 50 officers, who now carry handheld computers loaded with the eCitation software. Additional units are on the way to 100 more SJPD officers. “This is an entirely new platform,” said SJPD Lt. Ruben Chavez, project manager of the eCitation system. The software reduces the percentage of citations that have errors, from 10 percent down to 2 percent. “Accuracy is ensured at the front end when the officers are issuing the citation,” he said. “For efficiency, that is 3,800 tickets [per year] that no one has to complete a quality-control review or retype all the data. It is extremely efficient.” With more than 4,000 citations issued since the new system went online July 30, 2007, efficiency and accuracy have improved, and officers can complete their jobs more quickly. Paper citations issued by the SJPD took three weeks to process, said Ramesh Narayanaswamy, president of government services at 3i Infotech. “This included copying, filing, hand sorting and hand entering them into a records department and then sending them to the court, which had to key-enter them into the court system for processing,” he said. With the new system, the citations automatically are sent to court after a 48-hour waiting period. “This wait period has been incorporated to allow officers to add notes and dismiss [or] amend citations if and when required,” Narayanaswamy said. “Otherwise, these tickets could be automatically routed immediately.” The eCitation system also allows officers to nab more offending drivers. “The most significant productivity feature in the application allows users to perform a ‘make similar’ [function] to any ticket they have written,” Narayanaswamy said, “so subsequent tickets can be written very quickly, without having to re-enter data.” Though writing tickets more quickly is a nice benefit, it wasn’t the goal of the system, he said, noting that the ultimate objective was to reduce the error rate and redundant entries. “When the full complement of officers is using the new eCitation system, a significant 42 B Y J E S S I C A J O N E S | A S S O C I A T E E D I T O R A N D TA M A R A W A R TA | C O N T R I B U T I N G W R I T E R http://www.govtech.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - February 2008

Government Technology - February 2008 Contents Point of View Big Picture The Last Mile On the Screen Products Four Questions for... CSI Effect Bad Medicine Making Health Care Personal Cashing In GIS for Less Nabbing Speedsters First Person: Records Management Chatter Box Oregon Data Centers Go Green Products Two Cents Spectrum Up Close Personal Computing signal:noise Government Solutions - Spring 2008 Power Play Double Duty Cleaning House Twice Prepared Smart Move The Path to Success Foundation for Service

Government Technology - February 2008

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