Remote access property inspection and dispatch system (RAPIDS)

Introduction
In the last decade of the 20 th century, the quality of life in Washington DC, like many big US cities, seemed to be deteriorating faster than the city's cash strapped government departments could affect reparations. Except for perhaps the Public Safety and Health Departments, no other District department has more direct effect on the city's quality of life than the Department of Housing Regulation. This department responds to consumer and other government departments' complaints regarding substandard housing and nuisance properties. During this period, rental properties reduced to slums by greedy owners and empty, vandalized properties frequented by transients and criminals threatened to overwhelm the department's inefficient manual, enforcement system but money for improvements was scarce.

After discussing the needs with DC Housing officials, OPTIMUS Corporation, developers of the NASA wireless, shuttle inspection system currently used at Kennedy Space Center, volunteered to assemble a contractor team to develop a housing inspection system based on the NASA system's concepts. OPTIMUS Corporation and its subcontractors, CGH Technologies and FMC, met with Housing Regulation and other DC officials over a period of eighteen months and rode with housing inspectors to determine the requirements of an automated housing inspection system. The Housing Regulation Department secured a federal grant that covered a portion of the cost of developing a pilot system for five inspectors, and the contractor team donated the remainder of the equipment and services required for the pilot program. This paper discusses this pilot system design and use.