Gary Hannah, CEO of Vocantas (Photo supplied)

Vocantas Inc. has completed the first stage of work with local partner Globis Data Inc. on a data collection project for Transport Canada.

Ottawa-based Vocantas, which makes interactive voice response systems (IVRS), is partnering with Kanata's Globis to collect information for the Canadian Vehicle Survey using the Vocantas IVRS for data entry at the start of a trip, and Globis's assisted-GPS cellphone tracking to determine the route and distance travelled and other information.

Transport Canada, which has been conducting the surveys since 1999, said it was making the switch from paper surveys because they are not always completed and are time-consuming to compile and evaluate.

"Vocantas has helped many clients who wanted to improve their response rates and avoid the expensive and lengthy process of paper surveys," said Vocantas CEO Gary Hannah in a statement. "Our solutions have proven to address these issues for a wide range of verticals to provide efficient, timely access to statistics through easy-to-view reports. Clients that use this technology for customer or patient satisfaction surveys have commented on the positive impact that this approach has had in the number and quality of their responses."

The project is a trial run for the Vocantas-Globis solution. Vocantas said trial participants preferred to use its hands-free voice response system to answer questions rather than entering their answers on a keypad.

During the study, the Vocantas IVRS solution provided project evaluators with daily reports of the caller's ID and phone number, their trip start date, time and purpose, the number of passengers and the trip end date and time.

The project follows on from the 2004 announcement of the Globis-Vocantas partnership to provide live traffic information via telephone using Globis's D.R.I.V.E.S. real-time traffic data and Vocantas's IVRS system.