King County Alerts

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King County Alerts

• GOVLINK WTO Traffic and Transit Alert was named
  as the winner of the Intelligent Transportation
  Society of America's "the Best of ITS" award for
  a Deployment and Market Development Shown to Save
  Time.
• May 2, 2000

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What Alerts are

• E-mail notification to subscribers about
• Road Closures planned as well as emergency
• Transit Disruptions emergencies and major
  events only

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Why implement Alerts

• Simplify notification process
• Enable consistent information
• Reduce impacts on call centers

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Notification process - before
Exception Information
Repeat as required for updates
Manual Preparation Type or hand-write Print
Manual Delivery Fax to 40 or 50 recipients at
a time Manually copy Post or distribute as
needed
Inform Public (100s served) Hard copy Some
Web-based By telephone (small pipe)
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Notification process - after
Exception Information
Repeat as required for updates
Electronic Preparation Database entry Online
distribution
Electronic Delivery Edit as needed Send
messages Same information updates Web
Inform Public (1000s served) E-mail and pager
mail Same info by Web By telephone (small
pipe, fewer calls)
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Consistent information
Database and updates
Edit and add public comments Suppress errors
Call center
Telephone callers
Alerts
Subscribers
Metro Online table
Web users
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How Alerts work

• Data source
• Subscription site
• Message entry
• Message deployment

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Data Source Message entry
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Subscription Site
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Message entry Send messages
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Road Alert!
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Transit Alert!
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Administering and Security
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Editing Subscriber Addresses
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What we did right

• Started with existing processes
• Had the right people on the team
• Considered technical options
• Spent 90 of time working out process before
  interactive coding
• Stayed very focused

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Where we would improve

• More initial analysis and planning
• Better development control
• More testing
• Better documentation
• More marketing

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What we plan for the future

• Regionalize
• Roads include most roads in the county,
  regardless of jurisdiction
• Transit three-county information, more types of
  disruptions
• Reach a broader audience
• Wireless access users
• More subscribers

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Other King County Alerts Public Health Seattle
and King County

• http//www.metrokc.gov/health
• 4 email alerts
• Public Health News Alert
• Recipe of the Week Alert
• Epi-Log Newsletter Alert
• Vac-Scene Newsletter Alert
• Communications Tool with Public and Media
• Target Population
• Number of subscribers
• Pros Cons of implementation

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King County Alerts

• Thanks for your interest
• Questions?