e-Government Integration with Web Services and Alerts: A Case Study on an Emergency Route Advisory System in Hong Kong Dickson K. W. CHIU Senior Member, IEEE Dickson Computer Systems Cherrie W.W. NG Dept. of Computer Science Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-2 Application Background Many public organizations and governmental departments offering useful services over the Internet Increasing support of programmatic interfaces to these resources through Web services Web services orchestration in e-Government processes integration and services Case study: Emergency Route Advisory System (ERAS) complexity and urgency requirements integrates information from disparate and heterogeneous sources intelligent computations at the back-end integrates with the processes of the emergency call centers at the front-end reuse of existing software design and components increasing demand of ambulance service in Hong Kong but inadequate ambulances

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-3 Stakeholders of the Emergency Route Advisory System Collect patient records Find shortest path to venue Provide basic information of the accident Input the information collected Provides ambulance information Provides traffic information Provides hospital information, collect number of patient

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-4 Conceptual Model for Alerts in ERAS

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-5 Example Urgency Level Description Urgency LevelDescription LowGeneral travel route information search. NormalFSCC call (e.g., patients’ request) Urgentemergency call center (e.g., traffic accident)

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-6 Conceptual Model for Transportation Network

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-7 Road Network Example and its Representations Road1: RoadRoad2: RoadRoad3: Road Stop1: BusStop2: Bus Road4: RoadRoad5: Road Road1: RoadRoad2: RoadRoad3: Road J1: JunctionJ2: Junction Road4:RoadRoad5: Road J3: JunctionJ4: Junction Road6: Road H1: Hospital

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-8 Deployment Diagram of the Whole System Alert Management System (AMS) Emergency Route Advisory System (ERAS) Route Advisory System (RAS) Traffic Information Agent Location Agent Search Agent Route Information Agent Emergency Route Search Agent Admin Module Route database Traffic/Location Knowledge Base Log database Caller Agent Traffic / Location Knowledge base Alert Monitor Traffic Information Agent Fire service Police Hospital Emergency Vehicles Call Center Process Management Transportation Department Public Transportation route information Traffic condition Civil Users

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-9 AMS Mechanism Alert Management System (AMS) Outgoing Alerts Outgoing Alert Responses Incoming Alerts Incoming Alert Responses System Workflow and Application Logic Create Alerts Execute Alerts Handlers Outgoing Alert Monitor Role Matching Module Service Provider Monitoring Module Process / Alert Definition Module Process Execution Module Incoming Alert Monitor Database

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-10 Typical life cycle of a route alert

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-11 Route Finding Algorithm Based on our HICSS38 paper on Route Advisory System (RAS) Route-based Dijkstra’s algorithm (RD-algorithm) traveling time is used as the cost metric Heuristics Search Area Limit Cost Bound Knowledge Based Finding

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-12 ERAS Enhancements Add the traffic conditions for a more accurate estimation of the traveling time for civil use Reuse the software modules from the ERAS and feed the traffic condition information directly from the Transport Department website This will not affect the performance of the ERAS and helps scale up RAS can also serve as a backup system in case of disastrous break down of the ERAS

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-13 User request under authorization policy system Document presentation User request XML instance generator Session management module Access control module XML schemas and instances XML instance base XML presentation details

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-14 Workflow of Emergency Call Center

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-15 Advantages of ERAS Improve the integration and automation of the current emergency call centers for the provision of quality services effectively and efficiently Increases the efficiency of the ambulance call service and helps the tightly staffed emergency call centers through process automation Reuse existing design and software (AMS, RAS, etc.) Web Services technology provides the underlying open platform for integration

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-16 AMS Advantages Handles urgent and error-prone conditions and possible exception cases Mediates variety of parties and personnel to liaise with Automates the required communications and integrates the processes to minimize the delay and costs involved in inefficient manual calls and retry calls Keeps track and monitors alerts Captures the knowledge and experiences of the call center staff

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-17 Future Work Detailed performance evaluation of the system Compare the service response time to the existing practice Effects of the tuning parameters inside the ERAS order processing and turnaround time How detail heuristics could be best formulated Use questionnaires to evaluate the satisfaction of various stakeholders Simulations for the scalability and robustness

eGovt IntegrationHICSS39-18 Question and Answer Thank you!