Transport Canada

Airports, marine ports and rail facilities and carriers are inspected by Transport Canada to ensure that safety and security guidelines are met. Field Inspectors carry out a multitude of inspection types such as infiltration and security equipment testing, perimeter checks, emergency plans and procedures and mobile command units. Inspectors need to meet inspection schedules and track follow-up activities nationally and internationally. More up-to-date information and reporting are problematic because of out-dated technology. From a headquarters perspective this creates an inherent reporting problem given that, often inconsistent data is scattered across the country. The Inspectors also need to track other related activities such as construction plan evaluations, committee participation and security and emergency preparedness awareness presentations. A new system would have to incorporate all these requirements so that Transport Canada could report on effective use of resources.

From an emergency preparedness perspective the headquarters and regional Situation Centres of Transport Canada are their disaster management information focal points for a response. Transport Canada needed an administrative tracking system to collect information about how the Situation Centres were being used, their level of activity, and their response capability, including services such as first responder training. The management of their emergency plans and procedures for various situations includes regular reviews and updating of procedures that needed to be entered into a log and tracked. This process is an instrumental part of their quality model.

AMITA worked with Transport Canada’s regional offices and staff to define the requirements by establishing and meeting with a focus group. A critical element to the project was the ability to define the user interface to ensure the system could be learned quickly and easily. To address this AMITA brought in specialists in user interface design, to determine how the system would support the users (inspectors), and conducted usability testing.

With new technology, AMITA developed a centralized custom application architecture that allowed regional inspectors to place their data and information into a central system giving headquarters the ability to use reporting tools to mine critical data that was located in one central database and that would be accurate and up-to-date.

The various inspection procedures associated with any particular type of inspection can now be easily accessed via notepad computer and can be drawn up wherever the inspector is and for any given problem that arises provided they have internet access. The solution eliminated lost time of having to come back with the appropriate checklist at a later date. Next inspection checks could also leverage the new system’s ability to customize a checklist even further for a specific inspection. Also the solution gave the ability to track and maintain different types of documents associated with a particular inspection such as a chart, drawing, picture, and/or map.

AMITA completed this project on-time and on-budget, and Transport Canada has deployed the system for all of its users across the country.

AMITA modernized the system with a new technology platform that was an enabler for better data management for inspectors and provided better reporting for Headquarters. Management could get data that was immediate which meant the data was more accurate, and the consolidation process was eliminated. Now better reporting tools could be added to extract up-to-date data needed to understand how resources were being used across the country.

Procedures and checklists could be accessed by the inspectors in the field providing them with critical information pertaining to a particular inspection type when needed. This would reduce delays and travel. Information from inspections. Information about how violations and deficiencies were resolved is valuable to both the inspector and Headquarters as it builds on the solution’s best practice information database.

With the more modern system, users can also track and maintain different document types associated with inspections such as a chart, drawing or picture. This ability allows Transport Canada to better assess problems found in the field. Also the new system provides Management with the ability to better monitor and track the day-to-day inspection and emergency preparedness activities in order to ensure the safety and security of citizens.

The department also runs exercises that provide key data for future planning.