One Solution Captain Linda Samuel, DEC officer-in-charge, asked the Department of Information Technology (DIT) to develop a means to take traffic-related data from the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system and make the information available to the news media via the Internet.
	Partnership In Virginia, emergency response in cities and counties is totally separate, but this doesn’t stop good regional cooperation in the metro-Richmond area. Henrico County lies to the east, north and west of the city of Richmond. Chesterfield County lies to the south and southwest of the city.
	Functionality An application was developed to scan the CAD system’s database once per minute for all traffic-related events, whether still in the pending call-for-service queue or a dispatched call for service. These events are placed into extensible markup language (XML) format and transferred to a UNIX server using the file transfer protocol (FTP). The UNIX server posts the data to two load-balanced Web servers. As a result, the CAD system is isolated from direct access to the Internet and remains protected from outside vulnerabilities. The Richmond metropolitan region did not have a consolidated means of reporting real-time traffic conditions and hazards to the public or the news media. A Web application was developed to post traffic hazard data to the city’s very first Web service implementation. Upon each page-view initiation, the application extracts data from Henrico County’s Web service and couples the traffic data stored in Richmond’s Web service to produce a user-friendly consolidated Web page of traffic conditions and hazards for both localities. Following the initial success of the project, Chesterfield County was invited—and encouraged—to participate. Chesterfield’s implementation and contribution of data to the Web service allows any citizen and the news media to pick any one of the three Web sites to view and obtain traffic conditions and hazard information for all three localities on the same page. Not designed solely for desktop users, the site can be viewed with ease on Pocket PCs, Blackberries and other handheld devices that have Internet access. The site refreshes itself automatically every minute without requiring user intervention. For both Richmond and Henrico data, the user may apply a filter to view only those incidents that have occurred in certain geographical areas by selecting the appropriate radio button. The information posted for each incident includes:    o The incident location    o The incident type (e.g., accident, hit-and-run, disabled vehicle, building fire, etc.)    o Status and time of status    o Remarks (Richmond only)
	The benefits “The success of the Web page has far exceeded expectations,” says Captain Samuel. The traffic Web page has reduced the number of calls from the news media by over 75%. The original target was a reduction of 50%. DEC personnel are pleased with the reduction of calls from the media. Members of the news media seem to be very satisfied and have been complimentary of the Web site. Likewise,citizens have called to compliment the traffic page; many remark that they check the Web site for potential problems along their planned route before going to work in the morning and before going home in the afternoon. On average, the site processes about 1 million views per month. The page won the 2005 Digital Government Achievement Award, sponsored by the Center for Digital Government. This national program recognizes outstanding agency and department Web sites and applications that enhance information interactions, transactions and/or services.
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