Doing it for the Kids
Transportation Researchers Work to Improve Texas's AMBER Alert Network
The work of transportation researchers has a major impact on economics, public safety, and quality of life, but often the direct effects on people are hard to see.
CTR researchers Dr. Michael Bomba and Dr. C. Michael Walton, along with graduate student Whitt Hall, recently worked on a project where the effects of their work on everyday people, specifically children, are more obvious. Dr. Bomba and his team were selected to design improvements to Texas's AMBER Alert Network.
AMBER Alert Dynamic Message Sign Using Text Message Protocol
The AMBER Alert Network is a notification system used by law enforcement to disseminate information to the public when a child has been kidnapped and is considered to be in immediate danger of serious bodily harm or death. The system was first implemented in Texas in 1996 and is named for a 9 year old child, Amber Hagerman, who was kidnapped and murdered in central Texas. Since then, AMBER Alert systems have been implemented in 41 states and are credited with saving the lives of 31 children. In 2003 it became federal law that all states institute AMBER Alert systems.
In the Texas system, information about an abducted child is relayed by law enforcement to the Office of the Governor and then to the Fort Worth District of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). The Fort Worth District is responsible for disseminating the information to volunteers at districts around the state whose job it is to post the alert messages to highly visible Dynamic Message Signs along well-traveled highway corridors. These signs can be seen in Texas along Interstate 35 and Highway 287. As Dr. Bomba put it, using the Dynamic Message Signs "in just a few moments you can increase the number of people looking for the victim exponentially."
When a child is abducted, every minute counts. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 74% of children who are abducted and murdered are killed within the first three hours of their kidnapping. TxDOT contracted CTR to study ways to make the AMBER Alert process in Texas faster and more efficient. Dr. Bomba's team learned that employees with the state were using cell phones and pagers to contact appropriate people with a new AMBER alert, sometimes needing to leave messages or call multiple numbers. The research team devised a plan to modernize the system, allowing state operators to send text messages simultaneously to multiple email addresses, cell phones, pagers, and other specialized receivers. The team also developed a protocol for these text messages that can be easily taught to AMBER Alert Network volunteers. The result is a smoother, more uniform system that adds precious minutes to search efforts.
Transportation researchers often work with esoteric concepts and problems, but the applications of their research can be quite practical and impactful. In the case of Dr. Bomba and the rest of the research team, there are permanent reminders of the importance of their work standing along major highways in Texas.
Read more about the AMBER Alert Network on the Texas Governor's Office Web site.