1 / 15

Florida DOT Road Ranger

Smartphone Application for Road Rangers Tucker Brown Roger Strain Robert W. Heller, Ph.D. Southwest Research Institute San Antonio, Texas USA. Florida DOT Road Ranger. Road Rangers Provide free highway assistance service Roving vehicles patrol congested areas and high incident locations

hollee-mcgowan
Download Presentation

Florida DOT Road Ranger

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Smartphone Application for Road RangersTucker BrownRoger StrainRobert W. Heller, Ph.D. Southwest Research InstituteSan Antonio, Texas USA

  2. Florida DOT Road Ranger • Road Rangers • Provide free highway assistance service • Roving vehicles patrol congested areas and high incident locations • Benefits • Incident reduction • Remove road debris • Incident duration reduction • Assist Florida Highway Patrol • Increase safety of incident scenes

  3. Road Ranger Activities Reporting • Activities reporting generations • Paper form • Windows XP tablet • Hardened laptop • Natural progression to Smartphone

  4. Objectives • Provide live connectivity between Road Rangers and TMC staff • Minimal data transmission cost • Minimal device footprint • Monitor Road Ranger field activities • Track GPS position • Receive event updates • Economical

  5. SunGuide Overview • Modular system integrating many technologies • Reuse of existing Road Ranger support

  6. Choice of Platform • Main consumer mobile device environments • iOS (Apple) • Android (Google, various manufacturers) • Others (less supported / popular) • Android benefits • Easier internal deployment • More device options for future selection • More carrier support at time of decision

  7. Mobile Communication • Based on web services • Standard port 80 traffic • No persistent connection needed • Based on existing RR driver • Security concerns • Username / password required to access server • SSL encryption used over HTTPS

  8. Managing Connectivity • Mobile data connections drop frequently • Web services mitigate this issue • Requests easily retried • If request fails, it is queued • Retransmitted when communications resume • After multiple failures, user is prompted whether to continue retrying or abandon message • User is shown data as if all requests succeed • Allows Road Ranger to continue working

  9. Mobile Functionality • Road Rangers must be aware of more than just the application • Complex interfaces may distract from nearby traffic while road side • Limited functionality reduces training burden • More complex data typically better related over phone or radio to TMC personnel • Less time staring at screen • More time watching surroundings

  10. User Interface Design • Small screen real estate • Touch-friendly controls • Alternate colors • Day time lightbackground • Night vision blackbackground

  11. Field Testing • Initial testing performed by developers • While beneficial, does not fully represent operational conditions • Early software releases provided to District personnel • One or two users loaded initial releases to test in actual field conditions • Once confidence was established, testing extended to additional users • Some actual Road Ranger drivers included

  12. Deployment • RR issued Android phones with SPARR • Trained to use phone & application • First weeks • Some users still called too often, (use app) • Some users didn’t call in things that weren’t covered by app • Discovered value of phone vehicle mount

  13. Results • In RR hands, not truck • Cost savings, time savings • Integrated AVL, better dispatching, multiple dispatchers • Intuitive, user friendly application, start simple add more later • More accurate time stamps • RR report more events and details • No handwritten log transcription • RR not dependent on TMC operator availability

  14. Future • Enhancements • Small tablet (larger screen) • Increased functionality • Pictures? • Google Map style directions • Dynamic Geofences • Alert if operators leaves event without departing the event from the app

  15. Questions? Tucker Brown 210-522-3035 tbrown@swri.org Contact Information: Southwest Research Institute PO Drawer 28510 6220 Culebra Road San Antonio, TX 78228 http://its.swri.org

More Related