eCite

eCite – Electronic Citations Generation and Processing System

General eCite Description

Total MOVE Compatibility

eCite Features

Benefits of eCite

eSearch and eSwear

Total Electronic Solution

How Do I Obtain eCite?

Additional Links for eCite

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General eCite Description

The eCite system was initially developed by CAPS with the support and direct guidance of the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts (AOC). Financial support has been provided by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA). Total cooperation and excellent feedback has been received from the Alabama Department of Public Safety (DPS). CAPS developed eCite as a comprehensive electronic citation issuance and processing system.

The eCite system goes far beyond being just an electronic citation form generation and transfer process. As part of the overall eCite development, CAPS created a software framework called the Mobile Officer’s Virtual Environment (MOVE), which enables officers to operate their computer systems from anywhere on the highway (described in more detail below).

Currently eCite is being used to generate the majority of traffic citations in the state:

Quickly, in a matter of a few minutes per citation;
Accurately, satisfying internal completeness and consistency checks;
Securely, maintaining total electronic logging and accountability; and
Legibly, enabling court personnel to greatly increase their efficiency.

Using a conventional laptop, notebook or tablet PC, an officer can issue tickets electronically, print a copy for the violator, and periodically transmit the tickets to an on-line central server repository. At that point the data are in the court system and no additional hand-entering by the district court clerks is required. Several municipal courts are integrated with eCite also and can pull the data into their system without hand entering the data.

CAPS has also developed administrative web portals for both officers and clerks to complement the eCite system. These portals enable:

Officers to swear to the citations at court and clerks to accept (see eSwear below);
Previously administered tickets to be searched by various parameters (see eSearch below), viewed and printed; and
The current status of a given citation to be ascertained, and its case number and file pulled up and evaluated.

eCite History

Software development on eCite began in 2002. Phase 1 of eCite ticketing process was piloted in January 2003 in Heflin, Alabama at the fixed base location truck weigh station. Phase 2 was a mobile pilot that used cellular air cards inserted in the laptops for Internet connectivity. This was the first system within Alabama to utilize license scanners, GPS devices and laptops to enable officers to write traffic citations quickly and easily from their vehicles. The eCite system is a client based application but it uses the Internet to transmit the tickets. If there is no connectivity, the tickets are stored to be transmitted later. This approach led to a successful pilot, which was followed shortly by a statewide rollout to all motor carrier (MCSAP) state troopers. The product was so popular and successful that the project has expanded to general vehicle enforcement troopers. As of the end of July 2007, all Alabama state troopers were using eCite, and a municipal rollout was begun and is still on-going. The first municipal pilot was with the Tuscaloosa Police Department in 2005. About 300 other municipalities have deployed eCite since that time. Agencies are now trying to expand their eCite user base.

eCite Overview Video

Click the following to view eCite introductory videos:

The basic operation of the eCite system

eCite Functionality

The following paragraphs summarize eCite functionality.

Paperless Efficiency. Officers use laptops with the eCite software to input data into the eCite database. This is facilitated by the ability to import data from previous citations, scanners to automatically input driver's license data, GPS readers to locate positions, and LETS, all of which can input data directly into the eCite record. These pre-populated data elements are editable if updates are needed, and most fields have drop down boxes with selections to make data entry quick and easy. Officers then print a hardcopy of the ticket to give to the defendant, which is the only paper involved in the process. The citations themselves are electronically submitted to the citation server. The district court citations are uploaded from the server to the AOC mainframe. Once the tickets are in the mainframe, the District Court clerks can view the tickets in the system and they never have to input the ticket data. These provisions have at least doubled the productivity of all of the criminal justice elements affected by enabling officers to double the number of citations that they write, and essentially eliminating the duplicate data entry at the court. In addition, there is the increased accuracy and reliability of the citation data. The following illustrates one of the input panels for the eCite citation record.

***To view the image click here.***

Total MOVE Capability. The eCite system functions only under the Mobile Officers’ Virtual Environment (MOVE). MOVE integrates...

The eCite electronic citation issuance system,
LETS-GO - a secure web-based search engine,
eCrash – for crash reporting
ULTRA – an incident/offense reporting module
ASPEN – a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) system, which is software for federal electronic reporting of commercial vehicle violations
A drivers’ license scanning device and
GPS capabilities, so officers with GPS units can capture their location and input it directly into the citation

Microsoft MapPoint is integrated as an option for those needing mapping capabilities. MOVE also enables Information to be exported out of eCite and ASPEN and into an officer’s daily activity log, which is also integrated into the desktop. The data captured with the scanner and other data such as citation or vehicle information can easily be transferred between the applications. Click here for more information on MOVE.

eCite Features. The eCite system has a number of versatile and unique features, including the following:

Driver’s license barcode and magnetic stripe scanning for pre-population of the citation data implemented by the MOVE environment;
Auto-population of driver’s license information implemented by direct access to LETS-GO;
Interfaces with Web pages and other applications through MOVE;
Auto-population of certain form fields by setting defaults (e.g., county, court, etc.);
Auto-population of driver and/or vehicle data imported from third party applications (ASPEN, etc.);
Auto-population of location data from GPS device;
Automated data validation for consistency and completeness;
Citation replication allowing multiple offences to be written up in a matter of seconds;
Easy definition of screen templates to allow customized preset values;
Automated Internet-based upload of ticket data to central data repository;
Automated Internet-based download of ticket numbers from a central repository; and
Ability to write and track warning citations.

Benefits of eCite. The features given above translate into a number of dramatic benefits to a state that can be divided into several recipient benefit categories:

Officer Benefits

Improved safety due to:

Faster citation issuance and thus less exposure to a potentially dangerous defendant;
Automated access to LETS through MOVE by which negative aspects of defendants can be determined;

Less citation generation effort resulting in an increase in job satisfaction;
Integrated activity logbook to reduce the amount of redundant paperwork required;
Availability of electronic information about the defendant that will assist in enforcement, e.g., information on previous warnings.

Justice Benefits

All citations are totally legible, and immediately in an electronic database;
All citations are totally complete, with computer edits assuring that no essential fields are omitted;
Computer consistency checks correctible in the field assure accuracy to the greatest extent possible;
Increased revenue due to speed in issuing ticket and ease in issuing multiple citations to same defendant;
Increased efficiency of court clerks;
No backlog of tickets to enter;
Citations are immediately transmitted to the court of jurisdiction, eliminating data re-entry by court personnel.

Highway Safety Benefits

More thorough enforcement, due to the ease of issuing multiple citations and the speed with which citations are issued;
Improved officer efficiency enabling officers to spend a greater percentage of their shift time in patrol as opposed to paperwork;
Meaningful warning tickets collected into the database and available for review;
Immediate electronic availability of previous citations, thus allowing defendants receiving serial citations to be detected.

Research Benefits

Ability to concentrate enforcement efforts in an optimal fashion;
Ability to easily determine demographics (defendant background information, types of citations issued, etc.)

Accuracy, efficiency and safety all will improve radically as a result of using eCitation. Use of this program is a force multiplier both for the officers and the court clerks. Ultimately, the safety of our roadways stands to dramatically improve through the implementation of eCite projects.

eSearch and eSwear. These are two companion administration systems that support eCite and greatly multiply its value.

eSearch is an administrative web site that has been developed to enable clerks and law enforcement administrators to search for and access existing citations. Citations can be printed from this site is needed.
eSwear is a virtual swearing process that allows the officer to swear to the authenticity of the ticket and the clerk to confirm via a touch-screen kiosk equipped with biometric-based authentication.

Click on the respective links above for more details:

Total Electronic Solution. The eCite system electronic citation process now includes the following electronic components:

Issuance – via the eCite software on laptops in the officer’s vehicles;
eTransmittal – once Internet connectivity is established via cellular air cards or hot spots;
eSwear – via a computer kiosk at the clerk’s office;
eFiling – via the integrated network - no mailing of hard copies;
ePayments – via credit card over the internet; and
eSearch and statistical analyses – via secure password protected web portal.

How do I Obtain eCite?

Alabama agencies:

There is no charge for the eCite software if you are an Alabama law enforcement agency. If you are an Alabama law enforcement agency and would like to use eCite, please contact the eCite technical support desk at 866-588-9830 or caps.support@cs.ua.edu. If you have never used the eCite software before, there are some initial forms to be completed so that we can obtain your municipal court information and municipal adopting codes. This information has to be programmed into the software before you can begin using it. Then your officers have to be set up with user accounts.

Other states:

The software is adaptable for any state or municipality. If you have any questions about the eCite software in general or would like more information about customization for your state or municipality, please contact us at our toll free number: 1-866-349-CARE or email Rhonda Stricklin at rstricklin@cs.ua.edu.

eCite Training Manuals:

Available upon request to eCite users. To request a manual, please email care@cs.ua.edu.

Additional Information:

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