EVA keeps Track of Traffic Accidents

The “Electronic Case Assistant (EVA)” Facilitates Police Casework in the
German State of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

Hermann Meier, DVZ Datenverarbeitungszentrum Mecklenburg-Vorpommern GmbH, Schwerin

“Effective police operations in the public's interests through integrated systems for police casework” is a tough demand in our information age, even in the area of public safety. Systems of this kind have to guarantee quantity, quality and flexibility while being dynamic and easy to use.

These goals of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state troopers in Germany were realized in cooperation with different partners in LAPIS, the Statewide Police Information System.

New software was introduced into this system, called the “Electronic Case Assistant” or EVA as an abbreviation for the German name, “Elektronischer Vorgangs-Assistent”. But the EVA application also stands for Easy Case Administration for the troopers.

This program supports the police tasks of recording and processing all police cases, regardless of what kind, who's involved and how the case will be processed.

The EVA software was developed by the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state troopers in cooperation with the DVZ or Data Processing Center Mecklenburg-Vorpommern GmbH. It was designed to meet the requirements of uniformed police on the beat, police detectives and of the police acting as coast guard.

In doing so, flexibility is one of EVA's biggest advantages. The system can handle the different structures of the police force, the variety of official channels pursued, how data is collected, necessary measures and the layout of forms to fill out.

With the introduction of the first phase in fall 1999, the recording and processing of traffic accidents testified to the project's success. All of the defined targets

• Free officers from time-consuming, routine tasks
• Avoid duplication when collecting data
• Simplification and variability in statistical evaluations
• Statewide access to all case data
• Nationwide access to police data pools (INPOL, ZEVIS, et al)

were reached. The end user can use EVA for a lot of different things. At present, 4000 police officers of the M-V state police force in 77 locations statewide work with the EVA software online.

The Data Processing Architecture EVA

EVA is embedded in the central administrative statewide police information system, LAPIS, and goes from a computer workstation in a police station via the station's server to the central EVA server. From the case processing system, EVA, access is made possible to both state and national INPOL data, as well as to the central traffic information system of the Federal Department of Motor Vehicles. Data on the police station servers is compared by a time-regulated replicating mechanism with the central EVA database, which is available for statewide information, research and statistics. Users are set up centrally in EVA and in other applications within LAPIS. The distribution of differentiated access rights and the rank in the station hierarchy is taken care of locally, in each police station.

An MS SQL server 6.5 is used as the database operating system with the option of upgrading to version 7.0. Access to the tables of the DB server generally happens through ODBC and, thus, independently of a database for the most part.

Visual Basic was used as the programming language and proved itself in an upgrade from VB5.0 to VB6.0 during the further development.

• The outstanding characteristics of police casework with EVA are:
• Basic data collection independent of the procedure
• Automated generation of standard procedures for casework with the option to change or extend
• Procedure editing independent of forms
• Control of how much data appears in the procedure
• Control of the layout of the printed form
• Case history with current status (case transitions, investigative searches, ...) and field history
• Case transfer, close, collection and series procedures
• INPOL Check for person and object searches
• Precinct-wide and/or statewide research and statistic

Basic Data Processing: Person with Search Query (INPOL-new)

Foundation for the software development was the approach model for the planning and execution of IT plans in the National Bureau of the Coordination and Consultation of the National Government (V-Model) with the submodels Project Management, Software Development, Quality Assurance and Configuration Management. Future users of the “Electronic Case Assistant” from the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state police had a large degree of influence in the development phases of the analysis and design, as well as in quality assurance. The project team was made up of software developers from the DVZ M-V GmbH (as contractor), analysts from the Department of the Interior Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (as client) together with police officers from various stations (as expert consultants).

Structured Analysis with case/4/0

The software requirements were generated with the tool case/4/0 using the methods of structured analysis.

The reworking, updating and quality assurance of the working model was carried out using Structure Diagrams from the current case/4/0 model EVA through the collaboration of all of the project groups.

Function Structure Diagram “Edit Personal Data”

Information Flow Diagram “Edit Personal Data”

Data Structure Diagram “Basic Personal Data”

Application Design with case/4/0

Starting with structured analysis, ER Model data groups (entities) were generated. These were placed in relationship to each other and illustrated for the individual domains.

Entity Relationship Model “Person”

The technically oriented EVA-DD Model was designed as a relational model from the ER Model which is oriented towards problem-domains.

Relational Model “Person”

The visibility of the relations was defined in a type structure diagram. The basis for this was the data structure diagram of analysis.

Type Structure Diagram of the Relation “Basic Personal Data”

Finally, the technical EVA program model including all of the modules contained in the program was designed in a module structure diagram.

Module Structure Diagram of the ADO Access Class “Person”

Generating Code with case/4/0

Implementation is carried out according to a three-tier model with Visual Basic directed by case/4/0´s generating functions.

The data access layer was generated completely from the CASE tool. Unified framework programs were created from the module templates in case/4/0 for the logical layer. The user interface layer was implemented completely in Visual Basic.

ADO Access Class “Person” Generated from the Module Template
with a Generated Code Sample for the Function “RSLoad”

Generated Code within the DB Relation “Person” located in the Relational Model “Person”

The EVA dialog flows were designed in accordance with the German norm DIN66234 and respectively with the European norm EN 29241-10. These norms set the standard for task suitability, that descriptions are self-explanatory, for the operation, conformity to expectations, ability to handle errors, customizing ability, and ease of use.

In further EVA steps, requirements are being set for the connection to “INPOL neu”. Like this, development in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern will cooperate with the activities for the redesign of the national police information network “INPOL neu”.

Conclusion

The initial phase is over: EVA has successfully passed the first trial period.

More than 20,000 cases have been entered into the system every month since the system has been employed statewide on 1 January 2000. The collaboration of the police officers and the software developers in the project team now enables the timely handling of procedures, which both facilitates police work while making it more effective. As such, the system makes an important contribution to security for the general public.

Though developed by and for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the “Electronic Case Assistant” EVA is now a proven solution which could facilitate police procedures in the other German states, as well.

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