Driving up vaccination POD efficiency with ALPR traffic data
As a main vaccination POD in Tucson, the University of Arizona (UArizona) implemented the AutoVu ALPR subscription service and Travel Time module. Today, they use the traffic data to get vehicles through the POD faster and maximize the number of vaccinations.
The company
Established in 1885, UArizona is a public land-grant university in Tucson, Arizona, United States. Today, the university enrolls about 46,900 students and employs 15,500 staff and faculty in 20 different colleges and schools. In early 2021, the UArizona had been chosen as one of the main points of distribution (POD) in Tucson. Aiming to get the university vaccination POD up and running quickly, key departments joined forces and set up an incident command team. Soon enough, residents were booking appointments online and lining up their vehicles at the University of Arizona Mall, the university’s main entrance, for their scheduled vaccination.
The challenge
While the vaccine roll-out was underway, questions came up about how long it took for people to get through the POD and what the maximum capacity could be with their multi-lane setup. To gather data, volunteers began asking drivers to send text messages as soon as they entered and exited the vaccine POD. This method only tracked a small percentage of all vehicles and not everyone would remember to send the text messages. Manually tracking traffic data would also be too costly. This is when Genetec began working alongside Route1, a leading data-centric systems integrator, to find the right solution for the vaccination POD.
The solution
Intuitive data insights
The team regularly monitors live traffic data within Security Center. They also examine data trends, comparing what's happening right now to yesterday, or the current and previous week.
Easy visual reporting
“Everything is displayed on a visual graph within Security Center. This helps us immediately identify if there are random delays or potential issues that we need to investigate,” said Sayre.
Flexible mobile viewing
When out in the field, the UArizona team is taking advantage of the Security Center Mobile app to check data. They can retrieve and email reports, see when a camera falls offline, or verify peak hours.
HIPAA compliance
As a healthcare-related operation, the University of Arizona made sure the Genetec solution would comply with all Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements.
“The most valuable data has been all about throughput. Using AutoVu, we can see exactly how long it’s taking vehicles to get through the POD and for people to get vaccinated, and then identify what can we do to get them through faster.”
Jim Sayre, Executive Director of Parking & Transportation Services of The University of Arizona
Results
When someone drives through the POD’s main entrance, an AutoVu ALPR camera captures a timestamp of the vehicle. Two more cameras capture the vehicle entering and exiting the vaccination tunnel, and then a final camera track the vehicle leaving the site. This allows for four unique time stamps on every vehicle that comes through the POD. The Travel Time module within Security Center then analyses all ALPR data and delivers insights the team can act on. According to Tony Busseri, President & CEO of Route1, “We all came together to build a solution that would not only offer valuable insights about their POD operations but would also be affordable and easy to set up.”
One insight discovered was that various team leaders had different processes for appointment check-ins. When those processes were standardized, they could consistently get vehicles through the POD faster. Another insight was that on certain days of the week cars took longer to get through the POD. Those days often had mostly new volunteers. Following this, experienced personnel was always onsite to assist newbies and keep the throughput of vehicles high.