Kiosks
Kick Transportation Project Into Gear
construction.com January 11, 2001
By Angela Graven
The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission
(HRPDC) in Virginia and Company 39, a subsidiary of Parsons
Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas Inc., think they have discovered
an effective way to gather the necessary community opinion
regarding public works projects. Open meetings, by and large,
aren’t effective because people just don't have the time.
So the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission (HRPDC),
a group of 16 local governments that set transportation goals
for the Virginia Beach area, has turned to kiosk technology
from Company 39 to keep the public updated on current transportation
projects and see what they think about future ones. The HRPDC
is placing the kiosks in places where people spend lots of
time, namely the mall and the library.
Following several major public meetings where
citizen counts totaled less than five people in attendance, HPRDC
began a program to study new ways of reaching people to tell them
about projects in the district and get citizen feedback. By reviewing
the past use of kiosks for campaigns conducted by the Virginia Department
of Transportation, the HRPDC decided they could reach the people
by placing kiosks in strategic locations. "Traditionally, when a
government agency is seeking public input, they ask citizens to
come to them in public hearings, workshops or open houses. We’re
taking a new approach and going out to the people in malls, libraries
and hopefully some retail stores," said Dwight L. Farmer, HRPDC’s
transportation director. "We’re trying to make it easier for people
to tell us what they think."
The HRPDC chose Company 39 for its expertise.
According to John Barden director of e-media at Company 39, "HRPDC
advertised this project and only two firms responded: a Virginia
kiosk manufacturer who also had a design staff in-house and Company
39. The manufacturer did not have experience developing public participation
programs for the transportation industry. We have developed media
for more than 600 transportation projects. Company 39 has 58 full-time
people focused solely on Web and multimedia solutions primarily
in the transportation engineering field." As a wholly-owned subsidiary
of Parsons Brinckerhoff, Company 39 has a large client base in the
transportation engineering field.
Company 39 and the HRPDC developed a kiosk
with a touch screen monitor, keyboard and an eye-catching user interface
built with Macromedia Flash. The kiosk reports the current status
on area transportation projects and conducts a survey. The survey
asks people about their commute and then navigates them through
a series of GIS-based maps so they can identify the exact intersections
causing the traffic problems. Types of questions include: "Where
have you experienced the most problems traveling?" and "What should
be done about growing traffic congestion?"
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A Microsoft Access database gathers and stores
the answers to the survey questions. Access has a straightforward
interface, which allows each Company 39 client to easily change
the survey questions at any point in the planning stages. To read
the results of the surveys, an HRPDC representative has to download
the data from each kiosk. Company 39, the kiosk manufacturer and
the HRPDC are looking into wireless solutions for gathering kiosk
data.
The HRPDC doesn’t want to miss anyone so they
plan to move the kiosks around the community only letting them rest
in one location for two months. Since the program has just started,
the first two kiosks are still in their initial locations at the
Patrick Henry Hall’s Food Court and Virginia Beach Central Library.
The HRPDC expects to move them to other places later this month.
Since the kiosk program gives the HRPDC input on its long-term transportation
ventures, HRPDC officials have no set date as of yet for retiring
the kiosks.
The HRPDC will share all the data gathered
from this ongoing kiosk program with the public, local governments
and other key groups. Also, it will be used in the annual assessment
of Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) priorities. TIP, a six-year
program, includes specific, agreed-upon projects for the cities
and counties throughout the region. Approved in November 1999, the
TIP lists all projects for which federal funds are anticipated,
along with non-federally funded projects that are regionally significant.
Company 39 and the HRPDC intend on offering
kiosk users "a fun experience that will garner transportation-related
preferences and opinions from participants in a very short period
of time," said John Barden. For instance, once the participant completes
the survey, the kiosk prints out a coupon that the person can use
at the mall’s food court.
To date, 250 surveys have been completed.
Regina Lucas, public communications administrator at HRPDC, attributes
the low number to the initial technical difficulties they had with
the coupon printer. She feels that they would have gotten more responses
if people could have gotten their coupon for the Food Court. Company
39 and the HRPDC have sorted out the printer problem and a few minor
software glitches. "The survey is running beautifully and we have
had some very positive responses to the design," said Regina Lucas.
To reach even more people, Company 39 plans to launch in the spring
of 2001 an interactive Web version of the kiosk’s content, and attach
it to HRPDC’s site (www.hrpdc.org).
Company 39 has other services besides developing
interactive solutions for disseminating information and gathering
public opinion. In November 2000, Parsons Brinckerhoff combined
all of its e-business and e-media efforts and launched Company 39.
ProjectSolve, an online project management and collaboration tool,
represents Company 39’s e-business offering to the AEC industry.
Plus the firm can create presentations, 3D renderings and simulations
for their clients.
Photos
Courtesy of Company 39
© 2001 The
McGraw-Hill Companies - All Rights Reserved
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