Beating an Electronic Pathway to Government With Online Kiosks

When Vice President Al Gore started talking about reinventing government three years ago, one of his most frequent refrains was about the need to follow the lead of private business and make better use of modern electronic communication pathways, such as the Internet, to bring public service to the citizenry.

Accessing the government through the Internet and the World Wide Web is one way to do this. But how will the 97% of the people who don’t have computers and modems on their desks access a wired government?

They might use kiosks--publicly accessible PCs stored in secure enclosures, controlled not by keyboards but by touch screens.

“Kiosks are part and parcel of the ways that we’ve found to use information technology to improve services for customers of the government,” said Greg Woods, a senior staff member in Gore’s National Performance Review task force, which is looking at ways to make the federal government more efficient.

Like the latest personal computers, kiosks can be multimedia devices and can be used interactively. In short, they can do almost anything a PC can do: play full-motion video, complete with audio; dial into the World Wide Web or the Internet; or access distant databases and display the information.

About 148,000 kiosks are now in use throughout the country, according to data gathered by Probe Research Inc. of Cedar Knolls, N.J. The company predicts the number to rise to about 989,000 units by 2001.

Retail sales applications--such as the informational kiosks found in music stores, or the recipe kiosks in grocery stores--currently make up a bit more than half of all kiosks in use, estimates Warren Hersch, a senior analyst with Probe. Those applications are followed by government-driven projects, which--though still making up only slightly more than 12% of all installed kiosks--are gathering significant momentum, he says.

Kiosks can be used for simple informational tasks--finding bus routes, checking on Social Security benefits or perusing job listings. But the technology has more promise. Kiosks are being used, with varying degrees of success, for more interactive or transaction-oriented operations, such as paying car registration fees, traffic tickets or filing for birth certificates.

When everything works right, kiosks provide more convenient services at a lower cost than possible with human employees. And because a kiosk can work around the clock--like a bank’s automated teller machine--dealing with them can be more convenient than going to government buildings during business hours.

“The business rationale for using kiosks in government is to cut out the middleman,” said Michael North, founder and CEO of Marina del Rey-based North Communications, a kiosk development company. “And government has a larger and fatter middleman than any other institution.”

Kiosks have proven successful in the court systems in Arizona and Utah. The QuickCourt system offers a “divorce function” that helps married couples involved in uncontested breakups figure out financial matters, child visitation terms and fill out the right forms. But the official procedure must be finalized the old-fashioned way: by filing papers with a court clerk.

Nationally, one of the biggest kiosk activists is the U.S. Postal Service. The Post Office--which has lost business in recent years to fax machines, private delivery companies, electronic mail and the Internet--is trying to remake itself into an organization in the business of transferring information, rather than just letters and parcels.

The matchup makes sense, says Robert Reisner, executive vice president for new electronic business at the Postal Service, because at the most fundamental level, kiosks should be situated in a place that’s safe, public and already a familiar and trusted site.

“Kiosks follow the notion that in a democracy there needs to be equity about access to information,” Reisner said. “We’re looking at them as a government service delivery mechanism.”

The Postal Service has begun a pilot project in North Carolina to test ways to provide a broad range of governmental services via kiosks.

Called WINGS, for Web Interactive Network of Government Services, the program is essentially a framework for how government agencies might use kiosks cooperatively. This way, explains Reisner, a single kiosk could be the nexus for a citizen’s interaction with government--whether it’s the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles or the federal Social Security Administration.

The city of Los Angeles, through the office of the Information Technology Agency, has just awarded a contract to North Communications to study the city’s information resources and suggest ways to use kiosks.

“The goal of the study is to assess the information we have and how it can be put out there and displayed in the kiosk applications,” said Frank Martinez, executive officer for the city’s Information Technology Agency.

Despite its potential, kiosk technology has been slow to catch on among governmental agencies.

Info/California, a state-run Sacramento-based program to explore the idea of using the machines to improve access of the public to government services, was discontinued last summer, a casualty of budget-cutting, says Harold Ferber, its project manager.

The Los Angeles County Municipal Court, which is testing informational and interactive kiosks, suspended use of its kiosks that allowed people to pay traffic tickets and other fees by credit card because of difficulties in the credit card authorization process.

“The kiosks aren’t by any means a profitable thing. . . . They’re strictly a service to the citizen,” said Art Malinski, chief of the information systems division for the court. “There’s no way to pass on the costs of the kiosk to the customer, so we’re actually losing money on each credit card authorization procedure.”

The courts are reviewing proposals to restore the fine-paying functions.

Santa Monica has informational kiosks on the Third Street Promenade and at the main library that play 45-second multimedia sequences explaining various community public services, such as bus transportation and the proper use and disposal of toxic waste.

But the Santa Monica kiosks will remain information-only resources for the time being. “The cost of developing transactions is prohibitive right now,” said Keith Kurtz, project manager for Santa Monica’s Public Electronic Network--the city’s online public-access information service.

Indeed, one of Los Angeles’ budget-conscious requirements is that the kiosks pay for themselves--revisiting the city’s controversial plans to start charging for information and records, such as real estate information data, that it has traditionally provided for free.

“We’ll need to commercially define our information and find a method of recouping our costs in providing information to the public,” Martinez said.

In addition to the costs of running kiosks, there is a matter of public acceptance.

“Some significant part of the population will never want to use an electronic method of interaction with a government office,” said National Performance Review’s Woods.

Of course, if kiosks prove useful, the public will no doubt embrace them, proponents say. Back in the 1970s, Americans were nervously sliding their plastic cards into the first automated teller machines. Now, millions of people rarely enter a bank building--and they’re perfectly happy about it.

“I know the kiosk business definitely hasn’t happened as fast as the vendors had hoped,” she said. “Some of the efforts go a long way, but it’s still a real challenge for governments to integrate all the information and systems and to provide them in a cost-effective way to private citizens. And to be valuable, they will have to do all these things.”

Freelance writer Paul Karon can be reached via e-mail at pkaron@netcom.com