Under a Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant in 2007, the DWI Resource Center developed a web-based application that could detect DWI hot spots within the community. This web based application, called Operational Deployment and Reporting Application (ODRA), was a crash-mapping application which enabled users to view and analyze alcohol-related incidents within a specific geographic area. Such information as time of day, day of the week, severity of the crash, and proximity to alcohol establishments was included in the mapped results.
Many law enforcement agencies were trained and utilized the application for approximately a year and a half. A quarterly bulletin published by the COPS Office, called “Geography & Public Safety” in the July 2008 issue included an article on the Center’s ODRA application.
The COPS Grant ended in 2010 and funding was pursued from the Department of Transportation’s Traffic Safety Bureau to no avail even though the short time law enforcement were able to utilize it, they found it very valuable in their ability to make more DWI arrests using the application.
