e-Government Integration with Web
Services and Alerts:
A Case Study on an Emergency Route
Advisory System in Hong Kong
Cherrie W.W. NG
Dickson K. W. CHIU
Dept. of Computer Science
Hong Kong University of
Science & Technology
Senior Member, IEEE
[email protected]
Dickson Computer Systems
[email protected],
[email protected]
Application Background
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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)
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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 frontend
reuse of existing software design and components
increasing demand of ambulance service in Hong Kong but inadequate
ambulances
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Stakeholders of the Emergency Route
Advisory System
Provides traffic
information
Provides traffic
information
Provides hospital information,
collect number of patient
eGovt Integration
Collect patient
records
Find shortest path to
venue
Find shortest path to
venue
Provide basic information of the
accident
Input the information
Provides ambulance
information
collected
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Conceptual Model for Alerts in ERAS
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Example Urgency Level Description
Urgency Level
Description
Low
Normal
General travel route information search.
FSCC call (e.g., patients’ request)
Urgent
emergency call center
(e.g., traffic accident)
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Conceptual Model for Transportation
Network
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Road Network Example and its
Representations
Road1: Road
Road2: Road
Stop1: Bus
Stop2: Bus
Road4: Road
Road1: Road
Road3: Road
Road5: Road
Road2: Road
Road3: Road
J1: Junction
J2: Junction
Road4:Road
Road5: Road
J3: Junction
H1: Hospital
J4: Junction
Road6: Road
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Deployment Diagram of the Whole System
Civil Users
Emergency Route
Advisory System (ERAS)
Route
Advisory
System (RAS)
Search
Agent
Route
database
Location
Agent
Admin
Module
Route
Information
Agent
route
information
Public
Transportation
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Emergency
Route Search
Agent
Traffic/Location
Knowledge
Base
Traffic / Location
Knowledge base
Traffic
Information
Agent
Traffic
Information
Agent
Call Center
Process Management
Caller
Agent
Alert Management
System (AMS)
Alert
Monitor
Fire
service
Police
Hospital
Log
database
Emergency
Vehicles
Traffic condition
Transportation
Department
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AMS Mechanism
Alert Management System (AMS)
Outgoing Alerts
Outgoing Alert
Responses
Incoming Alerts
Incoming Alert
Responses
Execute
Alerts
Handlers
System Workflow and
Application Logic
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Outgoing Alert Monitor
Incoming Alert
Monitor
Process Execution
Module
Role Matching Module
Service Provider
Monitoring Module
Process / Alert
Definition Module
Create
Alerts
Database
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Typical life cycle
of a route alert
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Route Finding Algorithm
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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
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Search Area Limit
Cost Bound
Knowledge Based Finding
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ERAS Enhancements
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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
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User request under authorization policy
system
4
XML instance base
Document
User
presentation request
XML presentation 5
details
XML
schemas
and
instances
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XML instance
generator
Session management
module
3
2
Access control module
1
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Workflow of
Emergency Call Center
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Advantages of ERAS
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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
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AMS Advantages
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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
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Future Work
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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
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Question and Answer
Thank you!
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