US Dept. of Transportation Office of Pipeline Safety

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) sought to involve the broadest possible audience of stakeholders from the news media, government agencies, and the general public and industry representatives in a series of public meetings. The meetings were part of a Public Participation Project to garner input on the rulemaking process. OPS decided to webcast the first meeting at Bellevue Community College in Washington State, which would last eight hours. OPS solicited bids from leading webcast service providers throughout the United States.

OPS selected Online Video Service as the most qualified, competitive provider of full range webcasting services to fulfill this contract. Online Video Service assigned a webcast team to staff every aspect of the client’s event.

▪ Setup and temporary installation of OVS Encoding StationTM equipment on site ▪ Preliminary quality assurance testing the day before the event
▪ Management of the 8-hour webcast during the event to ensure service continuity ▪ Hosting the desired webcast streams off site for access by users nationwide
▪ Provision of live customer support via a toll-free telephone number

The webcast was a success. More than 800 unique users from across the nation watched at least two hours of the live webcast, and more than 1,100 unique users watched an archived version of the webcast that was made available the next day for a period of one month. Only about a half dozen customer support calls were received, and all were resolved to the satisfaction of those users. Since the first webcast, Online Video Service has continued to perform for OPS, delivering dozens of events from venues around the United States to date.