Thank you for visiting the CAPS Web site. CAPS was founded in 2002 with the goal of assisting federal, state and local agencies by providing access to current research and cutting-edge software technology in the areas of transportation safety, public safety and homeland security. We are proud that our efforts have been extremely successful in bringing the latest in technology to transportation and law enforcement agencies throughout Alabama and to a number of partners in other states as well.
Our tremendously successful electronic citation project, developed in conjunction with the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts and the Alabama Department of Public Safety is being used all over the state. Not just a form writer, this system includes quite sophisticated court automation components as well as admin tools such as web portals to view the data. Major effort to expand the deployment of this popular product has been carried out with the exceedingly generous support of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs, who view eCite as a major traffic safety countermeasure.
With the ultimate objective of providing law officers with a complete set of tools that they need to make them more effective, CAPS also recently developed an electronic crash (eCrash) reporting system that takes full advantage of the innovations of eCite, and shares these capabilities in the Mobile Officer’s Virtual Environment (MOVE). The roll-over to eCrash was initiated on June 1, 2009 when all Department of Public Safety units and several city agencies started using it. The initial deployments went well and eCrash is receiving rave reviews.
We have also been involved in several major initiatives sponsored by the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center (ACJIC) to put the latest technology-based tools in the hands of field law enforcement officers. This work has included a significant three-way partnership between ACJIC, CAPS and the Alabama Department of Homeland Security to deploy technology solutions to address potential terrorist threats, as well as to provide first responder support for disaster situations.
Our continued innovation of the award-winning CARE crash data analysis software, supported by the Alabama Department of Transportation, has been vitally important to transportation safety program planning efforts on a statewide basis. The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs has also played a pivotal role in transportation safety program planning at the state and local levels, and we are proud to have partnered with them to provide data analysis support for their efforts since our inception.
CAPS’ most recent project, which was started early summer 2009, is the development of a new mobile client for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). Patterned after the Mobile Officer’s Virtual Environment (MOVE) that CAPS developed for Alabama law enforcement, it will enable federal officers in the field to access the wide range of tools that they need to perform inspections, conduct investigations and interventions, monitor enforcement and collect special information for motor carrier crashes, such as that required for hazard materials involvement.
In terms of new research areas, we are forging ahead to find new approaches to safety data analysis, particularly in the area of optimal officer deployment. We want to find new approaches to prepositioning officers in the field in places where they can best save lives and prevent crime. We are working not only to determine this information but to make it easily and readily accessible to officers in the field.
Again, we are extremely proud to have played a major role in public safety technology around our great state. We appreciate the support of the agencies mentioned above, as well as our many other partner agencies at the state, local and federal levels.
We hope you enjoy browsing the site and viewing some examples of our work. Please stop back often.
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