Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Puts Navigation in the Hands of Officers

Tracking the exact location of a traffic accident in Kentucky is vitally important to the Transportation Cabinet and to law enforcement. It allows them to plan for improvements in roadway design and safety. Now, with the help of handheld global positioning satellite (GPS) units, the job is getting easier and more accurate.

Back in June, the Transportation Cabinet announced they signed a contract
to purchase 6,000 Magellan GPS handheld devices for state and local law enforcement officers. "Magellan GPS offered us fast delivery, affordability, durability, and reliability -- everything we needed for this vital public service function," said Greg Witt, Assistant Director, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet Division of Planning. "For the majority of our law enforcement officers, GPS was a new experience," Witt added. "We also chose the Magellan GPS unit because it could be set up easily during a training session and be used intuitively to obtain location information by someone who has little experience with electronic devices and no practical knowledge of GPS."

Now that the units are in place, the Transportation Cabinet is continuously reviewing the locations using latitude and longitude to improve the accuracy of the data. They will be working with law enforcement agencies to address any coding and reporting errors as well. Once the fine-tuning is done, mapping exact crash locations should improve dramatically. According to Secretary James Codell, "Safety is a very important priority of the Transportation Cabinet. We want Kentucky's highways to be safe for those who travel in Kentucky..."

Visit the Kentucky Transportation Website here.



Disclaimer: All brands and product names are tradenames or trademarks
of their respective holders.

July,
2002

Techlines
Archive