Kofax Ascent Capture and VRS were integrated with WSDOT's collision records system to improve the quality and accuracy of captured images that the state's collision analysis teams use to make decisions about safety upgrades on local roadways and state highways. Each month, WSDOT is required to feed statistical information about traffic collisions to their counties and cities to help them develop strategies to improve traffic safety.
In addition, collision reports are considered public information and are accessed frequently in insurance claims, making the quick processing of each report critical for WSDOT, as well as the Washington State Patrol. With Ascent Capture and VRS, the quality of captured images has been significantly improved, and manual data processing time has been reduced to the point that collision reports are typically ready for public disclosure within 48 hours of receipt.
By integrating a flexible information capture system to streamline its collision reporting workflow and analysis procedures, WSDOT can now provide more efficient service to the public, while outfitting local officials with critical traffic safety information they use in the effort to save lives.
The WSDOT typically receives thousands of accident-related forms each month, in varying states of condition, that must be analyzed accurately and quickly enough to provide both the public and local communities with the information they need to make informed decisions about traffic safety. Kofax's information capture technology provided the WSDOT analysts with exceptional images without the need to rescan, was advanced enough to handle difficult-to-process documents coming in from the field that -- for example -- could be torn or rain-smeared, and ultimately represented a clear return on their investment.
As traffic collisions typically entail a variety of factors, including different vehicle types, sequences of events and accident location, WSDOT must maintain strict records on each collision for insurance and legal disclosure. As the result of a competitive bid process, WSDOT chose Olympia (Wash.)-based systems integration firm ImageSource, a Kofax Certified Solution Provider (CSP) for the project. ImageSource chose to implement Ascent Capture and VRS, along with a Bell+Howell 8000 series scanner, based on their capability to validate the integrity of keyed data and ensure that each disparate piece of data is relayed correctly into WSDOT's collision-reporting system.
As a result of the implementation, WSDOT has been able to reassign staff resources into other areas, eliminate a large amount of physical storage space used to house hard copies of collision reports and improve its daily processing productivity levels.
Increasingly, state and federal agencies such as WSDOT are adopting information capture solutions to cope with the mountains of paper and unstructured data that they receive, increase operational efficiency, and grow their level of service to the public.
