The CTAA National Community Transportation Roadeo is a very intensive undertaking. Pre-trip inspection, Passenger Assistance, 11 obstacle events and a written test all need judges, runners to collect the score sheets, people to verify the arithmetic and those who tabulate the scores. And then there are the TWO courses and upwards of 150 drivers all producing data which must be processed quickly and efficiently. This sounds like an opportunity for wireless remote data collection and reporting which is tabulated in real time.

Although the national event is the largest and most time critical undertaking, there are upwards of 25 local and statewide/regional Roadeos each year. These event demand the same level of accuracy and timeliness as the big event in May-June each year. The benefits of a digital scoring system is the consistency of reporting by the numerous judges possible. In the traditional paper scoring method, each judge observes the drivers' performance, records it and assigns score values and add them for a final score. Runners must collect the sheets and deliver then to "score central" where the totals are tabulated again and manually entered into a spreadsheet for the official score.

The Digital Roadeo Score App developed at ModalChoice is a suite of web-based forms and reports. They are designed to by processed on Smartphones and Tablet computers. A laptop computer will work equally well as long as it can connect via WiFi. The screen presentations are fully responsive, resizable and respond to devive rotation between portrait and landscape orientation. There are two ways the hand-hend devices and the reporting programs to communicate. Where there is a strong WiFi signal or cell service, the judges can log in to the Internet-based system and use local Wifi and Cell service (and charges) to connect. The advantage of the ModalChoice system is that it includes a Micro-webserver-in-a-box© to create a fully private web connection for the wireless devices using only WiFi on the private setup. This way the Digital Roadeo Score App can function quite literally "in the middle of nowhere." As an additional benefit, the Webserver and WiFi routers are battery powered and can be kept up and running via solar PV collectors.

The Roadeo Master can configure the individual events point assignments other local parameters in a simple Excel Spreadsheet file. The scores are likewise recorded in Excel Spreadsheet files for ease of human reading. All the Judges login with their Initials, which course they are judging the the event designation. As long as they do not close they browser they are kept loggin until the end of the roadeo. More than one Judge can be simultaneously logged into the same event as in the Passenger Assistance and Pre-trip events where there may be 2, 3 or 4 vehicles being used. Judges can move from one event to another merely be relogging in at the new event.

Several tools are available to the Score Master to monitor the progress of the day. There is a ScoreGrid screen to view which drivers have completed an event and what their score is. There is a report that shows just which driver numbers have competed an individual event. conveniently, there are two versions of the score input form. The text-based one is suitable for iPhones and Androis and should be usable for every event except Passenger Assistance. That form is large and cumbersome on a small screen. The Graphical version allows the Judges to finger tap the cone designations to register a fault. In either case, the score is display on the device in real time.

Email to Roadeo@ModalChoice to pose questions and get additional answers.

Copyright 2018 by Robert Carlson, ModalChoice.com
Contact: Roadeo@ModalChoice.com