Software could help Walworth County cops be more efficient
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James Coan
Photo
Timothy S. O'Neill
Three Walworth County police departments plan to use grant money to buy computer software that will allow officers to complete accident reports and citations in their squad cars.
The Delavan, Lake Geneva and Whitewater police chiefs believe the technology will make their departments more efficient, leaving officers more time to patrol the streets and dispatchers more time to handle emergency calls.
“Anything we can do improve the efficiency of our officers is a good thing,” said Whitewater Police Chief Jim Coan, who took the lead in applying for the grant. “This will free up time to engage in other public safety-related duties.”
The BadgerTraCS software is offered by the state Department of Transportation and is used by 180 agencies across the state, including the Wisconsin State Patrol, the Walworth County Sheriff’s Department and the Milwaukee Police Department, said Erin Egan, chief of citations and withdrawals at the DOT.
Law enforcement agencies have been using the software since 2005, she said.
The BadgerTraCS software, installed on the computers in police squad cars, includes 10 forms that officers can fill out electronically, Egan said. The forms include traffic citations, municipal citations, warnings, accident reports and drunken-driving incident reports, she said.
The software pulls driver and vehicle information from a state database and automatically fills in the forms, Egan said. The software also includes a list of state statutes searchable by statute number or keyword, such as “speeding,” she said.
“It decreases the amount of errors we have in our data because we’re defining what (information) they can pick from,” she said.
The BadgerTraCS software allows officers to replicate citations, Egan said. For example, if a driver is stopped for speeding but also is not wearing his seat belt, the officer simply would replicate the speeding ticket and change the statute number to reflect the seat-belt violation, saving time, she said.
The software also allows officers to print citations for drivers and to send electronic citations to the DOT, Egan said.
“It helps the whole process go a lot faster,” she said.
The Delavan, Lake Geneva and Whitewater departments recently received a $38,000 law enforcement assistance grant to buy the software. The three police chiefs decided it was something all of their departments could use.
“We’re catching up with technology,” Lake Geneva Police Chief Michael Rasmussen said. “As law enforcement, we’re so far behind.”
The software will cut time officers and secretaries spend entering citation and crash information because it can be downloaded from BadgerTraCS to department databases, he said.
“We’re getting rid of bunch of steps, a bunch of duplication,” Rasmussen said. “We’re streamlining the process to make it easier and more efficient.”
The software will save time for dispatchers, who often assist officers in obtaining driver and vehicle information, Delavan Police Chief Tim O’Neill said.
“It relieves our 911 operators from performing a lot of those tasks …” he said. “Dispatchers won’t have to do that over the radio, and they can dedicate themselves to emergency phone calls.”
The DOT is working on additional applications for the BadgerTraCS software, including a form for misdemeanor offenses and a mapping tool that would give location information for incident reports, Egan said.
The software also could be used to meet a new requirement that police officers collect traffic-stop data to be analyzed for racial profiling, she said.
Jul 27, 2009 at 11:40 p.m.
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copperguy, thanks for your knowledgeable input. I have worked on similar projects in the business world and it's often surprising how little clients understand about what is necessary to do with even "off the shelf" software.
Jul 27, 2009 at 10:21 p.m.
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Avoid the creme filled doughnuts...they cause the "c", "o" and "p" keys to stick on the keyboard.
Jul 27, 2009 at 10:15 p.m.
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Less doughnuts + more software = more productivity.
Jul 27, 2009 at 7:42 p.m.
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mirandadee, I'm not saying that this is the case in your situation but I know from experience that once you get out into the more rural areas, folks tend to not put their addresses on their mailboxes or on other signs indicating their driveway. Plus, rural road signs get vandalized or stolen more frequently than city ones (at least that seems to be the case). Granted, many city people aren't the greatest with putting up their house number either but if you have homes close together, it is easier to "guesstimate" the address. Out in the sticks, that gets to be a bit harder.
People need to have their house numbers visible for their own safety. If you call for an ambulance, you really don't want them wasting time going door to door trying to find you.
Jul 27, 2009 at 5:50 p.m.
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i for one appreciate the work our officers do but i think they need to invest in better maps or gps units or something. we needed walworth county to our house friday night and they got lost with the map they had. the map in the phone book is better than the one they had. kinda scary
Jul 27, 2009 at 8:28 a.m.
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copperguy - You knew that had to be coming! LOL.
Jul 27, 2009 at 7:54 a.m.
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I was told it will help their spelling!
Jul 26, 2009 at 9:31 p.m.
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Funny thing. I wrote, "For those who just want to bash government and/or police, there will be no pleasing them." Then, look who followed!
Jul 26, 2009 at 9:27 p.m.
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Great! Now that they'll be more efficient, let's cut some positions -- by attrition, I mean. (Ever notice that none of the efficiencies ever translate into reduced positions.)
Jul 26, 2009 at 9:11 p.m.
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janesvillean: TraCS doesn't interface directly with the external databases (such as DOT). There is a utility (Dynamic Link Library) that captures information from a data browser. The data browser (either from State patrol or the local/county CAD system interface) sends queries to the external databases and then displays the results. The DLL in TraCS captures those results from the browser for import into the appropriate fields in TraCS.
TraCS does have screens to input the various local ordinances, but it is usually much more efficient to import them en masse from the Records Management System that the PD uses. Of course, that usually means getting an IT person to handle it. That should be the only consultant work, and relatively minimal cost.
Training is free from DOT.
Jul 26, 2009 at 9:01 p.m.
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I expect that the grant is to pay for computers and other equipment to make this work. As I noted earlier, I believe the Badger TraCS software is provided free of charge. My guess is that this article was written without the benefit of experienced IT input. The cost per squad for a Panasonic Toughbook computer, Pentax PocketJet printer, docking and mounting hardware will be about $6K, give or take for variations in what is needed. If they need modems to connect to the State Patrol's or a county wireless network, that's another $2K or so. Installation of all of the equipment is on top of those numbers. If starting from scratch, it can cost $10K - 12K per squad for the whole bundle.
There is some configuration of the software necessary, and there are tables that have to be built containing local ordinances for Municipal Citations. If a department doesn't have an IT savvy person, they will have to farm that part out.
For those who just want to bash government and/or police, there will be no pleasing them. However, this is a big step forward in improving efficiency and accuracy in information shared between the PD, Municipal Court, Circuit Court, District Attorney, and DOT. It eliminates a slew of repetition of data entry along the life cycle of a citation. Those reasons are why the state is offering the grants, and why the software itself is free.
Jul 26, 2009 at 8:29 p.m.
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I heard and saw for myself that Delavan doesn't even have working radar units in all of the patrol cars. I saw one of the radar units and it was held together with black tape! Hmmmmm I wonder if it really works! Nice taxpayer money getting thrown away AGAIN! I listen to the scanner and hear Delavan running license plates over the radio, maybe this grant will get my hometown cops some useful equipment that will actually help! BTW They really seem to hang out at Panera Bread! What a waste of time on the taxpayer dollar!
Jul 26, 2009 at 8:14 p.m.
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The really stupid part of all of this is the Delavan Cops don't have computer's in their cars! So what are they going to do with the software without computers in the cars??? I did not read anything about putting computers in the cars or the so called grant paying for them! I guess more smoke to blow up the taxpayers you know what!
Jul 26, 2009 at 7:41 p.m.
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Actually Wisconsin DOT provides free training to officers that enables the departments to setup the software and configure the systems themselves so it is not necessary to use an outside consultant.
Jul 26, 2009 at 6:44 p.m.
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Regardless of whether any part of the system is "free of charge", it's going to cost some time and money to get the necessary hardware and configure everything, so the bulk of the cost is going to be paying a consultant. It looks to me like internal interfaces and to external databases both need heavy customization.
Jul 26, 2009 at 5:46 p.m.
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I'm confused. Is this grant really to buy the software? The last I knew, the Badger TraCS software was provided free of charge by DOT. The grants I'm familiar with were primarily for purchasing computers, printers, and other equipment needed to run the software and interface it with a system to get vehicle and driver information from the state databases.
This will be a big boost to those departments. Congrats on the grant and the step forward!
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