Virginia Counties Collaborate Through SceneDoc to Improve Critical Communication from Incident Scenes

When traffic backs up in Virginia’s Rockbridge and Montgomery Counties, the entire eastern seaboard can feel the impact.

The two counties bookend an 82-mile section of Interstate Highway 81, a high-volume traffic artery that mirrors the rolling arch of the Appalachian Mountains. It is one of the region’s busiest traffic arteries and a critical link for the movement of people and goods.

Unfortunately, with high-traffic highways come collisions, accidents and back-ups in traffic that can stretch for miles.

The Rockbridge County Office of Emergency Management, the Lexington (VA) Fire Department and the Montgomery County (VA) Office of Emergency Services needed an easy to use, highly effective way to coordinate the emergency response and cleanup of major highway incidents.

The Problem

The challenge for the interstate highway system has always been to determine the best use of resources when you have multiple state and local government agencies involved in the response.

And to ensure that all jurisdictions connected to a highway are aware of problems up and downstream from an incident.

Unfortunately, in Rockbridge and Montgomery Counties, no integrated communication system was available. County and contractor resources were deployed often with limited information about the specifics of the incident. This created bottlenecks, especially if hazardous or nonhazardous materials were spilled in the incident, requiring specialized equipment or vehicles to remediate.

The consequence of a lack of coordination can be devastating for traffic. Every 10 minutes that I-81 is closed, traffic can back up 2 miles; a serious incident that closes the highway for hours can literally throw the entire region into traffic chaos.

Of greater concern, it was difficult to ensure the status of the incident was shared with communities up and down stream from an accident, warning them a deluge of traffic – created by a closure at the point of the incident – was headed their way. This greatly increases the chance of additional incidents and requires increased vigilance on the part of law enforcement and emergency services to ensure public safety.

The Solution

The challenge to SceneDoc was to improve information flow from the scene of the incident to all agencies and communities up and down stream.

Lexington FD and Rockbridge County Emergency Management in Rockbridge County and Montgomery County Emergency Services in Montgomery County are now actively sharing information via SceneDoc. Other counties along the I-81 corridor will currently receive passive reports seamlessly sent to them by both counties The main goals were to increase the efficiency of information movement, and to decrease the administrative burden of collecting information from the scene of an incident and transmitting it to affected communities, agencies and contractors.

Using SceneDoc onsite through tablets, Lexington FD, Rockbridge Emergency Management and Montgomery County EM are able to perform effortless initial documentation on the nature of the traffic incident and specific requirements to re-open the road. This frontline information is critical if the EM offices are able to dispatch the the closest county and contractor assets to facilitate clean up.

Using a form created jointly by the three organizations within SceneDoc, the individual documenting the scene can record the time of occurrence, number and type of vehicles involved, the nature and gravity of injuries, the rate/length of backup. The forms are supplemented with annotated photos.

While still in the field, the EM coordinator can share a pdf of the forms and photos with all affected communities and agencies. This can also include notification if a hazardous material was breached in the incident.

The Results

In May 2014, Rockbridge Country EM along with the Lexington FD began a joint SceneDoc implementation. In June, Montgomery County EM joined the project.

Almost immediately, all the agencies involved reported an 85 per cent decrease in processing time for documenting the scene, and a significant improvement in the quantity and quality of information being shared. EM office paperwork was completed with full documentation and final reports in 20-40 minutes, depending on severity of the incident.

Other county agencies noted that the information obtained by the Emergency Management offices, particularly the photos, enabled them to quickly notify county and contractor assets, who were then able to dispatch exactly the right type and number of vehicles and equipment to re-open the highway.

About SceneDoc

At SceneDoc, our goal is to revolutionize the field of investigative and inspection services through the use of mobile technology. Today, SceneDoc is in use at all levels of Federal, State & Local government organizations.

As we’ve gathered more input from our law enforcement partners and gained more experience deploying SceneDoc, we believe that ‘untethering’ the officer is only the first, most obvious benefit of mobile computing. Mobile technology represents a fundamental paradigm shift for investigative services and law enforcement.

At SceneDoc, we take our role as a pioneer in mobile government technology seriously. Our pledge is to be relentless in our quest to improve officer safety and effectiveness through mobile and secure cloud computing.