Case Study: City of Vaughan, Ontario achieves faster licensing and improved by-law compliance with BlackBerry smartphones

Municipality Monitors Compliance with By-laws, Helps Streamline Licensing Process with BlackBerry Smartphones

The City of Vaughan, a fast-growing municipality near Toronto serving roughly 250,000 residents, faced inefficiencies in its by-law enforcement and licensing process: officers in the field could not access city records or verify permits on site, relied on phone calls or returning to the office, and experienced a seven-day lag in processing new licenses.

Vaughan deployed BlackBerry smartphones with two in-house apps — the Mobile People Application (accessing GuardCard photos and permit status) and the CTS Mobile Viewer (GIS-based mapping via Freeance Mobile) — enabling on-the-spot verification, data entry and visual tracking of complaints. The result was fewer phone calls, faster licensing (service cycles cut from seven days to almost half the time), improved field productivity and compliance, and cost savings from building the apps internally.

City of Vaughan, Ontario

Dimitri Yampolsky

Chief Information Officer