ECM enables more reliable traffic reporting

Faster, better informed problem solving is one of the benefits of an enterprise content management solution deployed by the Kentucky State Police.

According to Sgt. John Carrico, the Kentucky State Police's compliance with federal traffic safety data regulations was jeopardized in the late 1990s by an antiquated mainframe system and manual business processes. Federal grant requests were even being denied because of the questionable quality of the data, which waited sometimes in a nine-month queue to be manually entered and wasn't cross-checked for errors

"Also, it was almost impossible to extract data from this system," says Carrico. "Custom programs had to be written each time, and retrieval would take about two to four weeks. We knew we had to prepare for new challenges and meet the federal compliance deadline in 2000, so there was no question that we needed to modernize our data management methods."

To create a new traffic collision data reporting system, Kentucky State Police chose an enterprise content management (ECM) system from FileNet consisting of FileNet Image Services, IDM Desktop and Web services. The solution seamlessly integrated with the agency's Oracle relational database and Captiva FormWare data capture/processing software, according to FileNet.

The solution is maintained by the State Police division as a central repository directly accessible to authorized users through desktop applications or a Web-based interface. Traffic reports are entered into the system through four scanning stations. Abut 250 law enforcement personnel use the ECM system daily to process about 150,000 traffic reports per year--all of which are available to the public and archived for three years.

"Instead of waiting nine months or more to enter data into the system, it takes only a few hours in most cases. We also have the ability to submit statistics directly from the collision scene into the ECM system electronically," says Carrico.