AWARDS & RECOGNITION
2008 Awards: Digital Government: Government to Government (G to G)
RECIPIENT:
Minnesota - Applications for Road Closures and Routing and Common Operating Picture for the I-35W Bridge Collapse
At 6:05 p.m. on Wednesday August 1, the Interstate 35W bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed and fell into the water. Thirteen people were killed and more than 100 people were injured. Responders quickly arrived at the site and Emergency Operation Centers were rapidly activated. Traffic immediately became snarled as a primary travel corridor was no longer available, and rescue operations closed many major streets surrounding the site. City, regional and state managers needed solutions for situational awareness and a means to address the problem of maintaining the movement of goods, services and people around the site and keeping businesses open. With a major traffic corridor now unavailable, people needed to find new routes to get in, out and around the city that circumnavigate the collapse site and surrounding area.
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) contacted both City of Minneapolis and the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) staff to see where it might assist in responding to the incident. The City of Minneapolis led a discussion that focused on the need to quickly publish incident site information to city staff and responders. Additionally, there was a need to communicate to the public how the bridge collapse would impact their transportation needs and how to provide route information that could direct them from their location to specified destinations within the greater Twin Cities area.
ESRI provided a team of developers. Some members focused on creating a Common Operating Picture (COP) that could be used by incident command for situational awareness. Other team members put their efforts toward a road closure and routing application that would allow staff from multiple agencies (e.g. City of Minneapolis and Mn/DOT) to input specific up-to-date information about which state, county and city streets were closed to traffic, which streets were serving as primary detour routes, and which streets were going to have expedited traffic flow. In addition, the application needed to integrate all of that data into a knowledgeable routing system for citizens to use.
The outcome of the efforts provided the incident command team with an easy-to-use tool that assisted with effective communication of site information to the chain of command and multiple responding agencies, and provided a mechanism for collaborative planning of operations. The public also significantly benefited by having a user-friendly website to find new routes that circumnavigate the bridge site and surrounding area.
....Gopal Khanna, Chief Information Officer, State of Minnesota
FINALISTS:
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Michigan
Wildland Fire Application
Pennsylvania
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: National Hydrography Dataset Data Stewardship and Enterprise Water Applications
OTHER NOMINATIONS:
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Alabama
The Information Technology Strategic Planning Application for the SMART Governing Initiative
California
Statewide Fingerprint Imaging System - Web-based Training
Hawaii
Hawaii Electronic Death Registration Systems
Montana
Montana Conference and Training Registration
Nebraska
Rules and Regulations Tracking and Email Notification System
New York
Statewide Voter Registration Database Project
Oklahoma
CORE Project
South Carolina
Judicial Case Management System - Payment System
