Based upon the superior technology used within MOVE, and its remarkable user acceptance, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has contracted with The University of Alabama Center for the Advanced Public Safety (CAPS) to provide technical assistance in developing the FMCSA Mobile Client Application. CAPS has partnered with the prime contractor in this effort, Wyle Information Systems, LLC., to provide the technical support for the further design, development and implementation of the MCA.
FMCSA traffic safety and motor carrier compliance missions are heavily data driven. Accurate and timely data on all phases of this process are essential to this mission. Over the years a number of systems have grown up to support this goal, and they have been extremely effective.
This is an ongoing project that has five phases and will take nearly a year to fully complete. However, it is being developed in a modular way so that each phase can bring about as many of its benefits as possible pending succeeding phase completion. CAPS support is bringing the most effective technology to FMCSA in an accelerated time frame. The work includes services to provide system level support necessary for Wyle Information Systems and FMCSA to implement the MCA with the most advanced technology that is practicable without an interruption in the current capabilities.
FMCSA is very directly involved in all phases of the effort, including the requirements, design of new data elements and the interface, specification of use cases, and generation of documentation. The MCA Project was initiated by FMCSA to replace a number of concurrently existing systems with one field application. All users will perform their work tasks from a single log-in entry page that provides access to all of the existing functionality of the various systems. At the same time, the opportunity is being taken to generally upgrade the application technologies to generate additional benefits, to enable them to become more effectively interoperable, and to provide the capability for all of them to synchronize with the FMCSA Portal.
This improved technology and consolidation of functionality will speed response to evolving business requirements, significantly expand IT delivery capabilities, and reduce IT operation and maintenance costs. The MCA is being rolled out in multiple “Release Iterations,” with each subsequent iteration adding and enhancing functionality to the previous one. At the same time opportunity is being taken to streamline and simplify the current process, which consist of multiple laptop applications, into one laptop application that will have the ability to transfer and synchronize data when Internet connectivity is available.
The objective of the total project is extremely aggressive: to enable FMCSA to realize the benefits of the MCA in the short time frame of between 6 to 9 months. The CAPS contribution to the effort includes systems analysis, analysis of business rules and business processes, translation of systems requirements into design specifications, and producing working code to accomplish the functionality as given in the MCA requirements documents.
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