For example, while most people at this conference want to ensure the vitality of cities, telematics may actually encourage more and more individuals to make personal lifestyle decisions to move and live far from the cities. The largest promise of telematics for the individual citizens we serve is probably making it much easier to obtain information about local authorities and also to more conveniently obtain all the various permits that governments require. One of the best examples of using these technologies to inform citizens of the deliberations and decisions of a local authority is in Maui County, Hawaii. That county is comprised of several islands, and it is difficult for residents to attend county council meetings. This is much, much less expensive than a traditional broadcast by a radio station.
Citizens can also, of course, email their elected council members.
In my county of Hennepin, we make available all of the information we have about real property to all real estate agents who subscribe to our information service. We learned that nearly all inquiries about property in our county came from real estate agents when a property was about to be sold. Now we also make the basic information, such as market value and property tax amounts, available to everyone at no charge over the Internet. We also have a subscription service available for attorneys to check on the status of various court cases in our system. This has reduced the number of staff employees who must answer inquiries about specific cases in our legal system.