No, this post has nothing to do with the files lost earlier in the week.  Rather, I’m writing to discuss the work of CAE, creators of very sophisticated simulation and modelling technologies software.  With annual revenues exceeding $1 billion, CAE employs approximately 6,000 people.

This large company appears to be very good at making good software.

CAE 5000 Series wins GOOD DESIGN award in the Transportation category, awarded by the Chicago Athenaeum (Museum of Architecture and Design) and the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies. GOOD DESIGN bestows international recognition upon designers and manufacturers for advancing new and innovative product concepts and for stretching the envelope beyond what is considered standard product and consumer design.

The 5000 Series is graphic modeling software ! When was the last time you heard of any kind of software winning an award for “stretching the envelope” for “product and consumer design”?

I saw some of their work at the recent Intelligent Systems Collaborative conference.  There they talked about a system they developed for cities’ emergency services dispatchers.  The concept of the system is to model the roads, traffic speeds, the locations of the first responders, and compute expected arrival times for any individual 911 call.

Aside: Modelling city traffic is in itself an ambitious project but by no means is this new.  Traffic departments across the country have been using such technology to help them decide where to put traffic lights, how to time them, and test road designs to see how well they will work for the city’s traffic problems.  In my city of Windsor, Ontario, this has been a major discussion point ever since US border security tightened up after 9/11, causing miles of truck backups on city streets.

CAE takes this general modeling information, and applies sophisticated algorithms to compute how well the city is covered by its first responders.  Quoting from their white paper:

An indication on the GUI alerts the Communications Officer that a redeployment of resources is required, and, within seconds of the user’s request for a recommendation, an optimized redeployment of available resources is presented to the user both textually and on the system’s map display.

The deployment optimization takes into consideration the real-time positioning and status of all available units through the tools integration with the automatic vehicle locator (AVL) and CAD systems.  In addition, a sophisticated traffic and routing analysis algorithm is used to generate the drive time for each unit deployment taking into consideration the time of day and historical traffic patterns.

In short, although human dispatchers are still responsible for all decisions concerning deployment, the CAE Deploy system works very hard to help the dispatcher understand what is the best way to deploy vehicles.  Often, this will mean instructing an ambulance to leave the garage and go to a mobile waiting position.  This could be to cover for another vehicle that has already been called into action, or to adjust for the constraints of rush-hour traffic.

As for the interface, CAE wasn’t haphazard about designing it.  Rather, they employed human-factors professionals to go through iterative evaluations of the GUI, working with the communications officers and paramedics during each phase of development.  The GUI they designed provides immediate access to the information these people need, ensures the officer is constantly aware of the current situation through the visual presentation, and provides all the necessary tools to operate effectively.

In deploying the deployment system, they were able to achieve an 80% savings in decision time by the officer, while at the same time dramatically reducing the cognitive workload demand from consistently overloaded, to  consistently managable.

And that’s the value of a collaborative system.

(I would add a link to the CAE Deploy product, but it seems they haven’t published that yet.  Instead, I’ll direct you to another interesting system.  This time, a system for disaster response simulation and management.)