Closer look at TraCS

The Traffic and Criminal Software (TraCS) is application software that, combined with laptop computers, one or more PCs in a central office, and data communications, provides officers with all of the functionality needed to record and retrieve incident information wherever and whenever an incident occurs.

Officers respond to many incidents every day and each incident rrequires paperwork and other administrative duties that take away from valuable patrol time. The TraCS software was developed in response to the need for a well-designed information management tool for field officers that would simplify the data collection process and ease the administrative burden on officers.

TraCS is designed around the concept of a Contact, which is defined as an Incident for which an officer is called to perform an official act (e.g., write a citation, investigate an accident.) A Contact can have many scenarios and may involve one or more of the electronic Forms designed for the TraCS software using the TraCS SDK.

In a paper form environment, officers are often required to copy the same information, such as names, addresses, and vehicle information, to multiple paper forms. TraCS eliminates this repetition through the use of Common Information, which allows the user to enter certain types of data once and use it many times. TraCS organizes Common Information into the following four categories:

Individuals (e.g., name, address, phone number)
Vehicles (e.g., make, model, license plate number)
Commercial Carriers (e.g., carrier name, carrier address, DOT number)
Location (e.g., X & Y coordinates, location description) TraCS uses the latest mobile computing technologies to facilitate data collection where incidents occur. Officers have access to many tools to aid them in reporting events, including Officer Notes, customized data entry fields, a robust diagram tool, and interfaces to a wide array of software and hardware input sources. All of these tools are available wherever and whenever they are needed.

TraCS consists of two related applications, TraCS Mobile and TraCS Office, which are used to collect incident data, and the TraCS Office Database, which is used to store data at the local Agency. TraCS Mobile is designed for Mobile Data Computers (MDC), such as a laptop or a tablet PC, known as TraCS Field Units, while TraCS Office is designed to run on a PC or TraCS Workstation at the local Agency. The TraCS software also includes functionality to move data between the TraCS Office Database and TraCS Field Units running the TraCS Mobile application.