When Moushe Babroudi is not working as a part-time police officer, he is creating a business. Babroudi’s room looks like a normal one you might see on Zoom — there’s shelves for shoes in the background and everything has its place on his desk. To Babroudi’s left side though is what makes him a bit more unique.

On his wall, he has multiple large sticky notes with writing stuck to his wall. The writing shows plans, ideas, and what’s to come. 

These are the foundations of Routi.

Routi is meant to allow government agencies to simply communicate with the public and other government agencies through the same process. The application is meant to allow these government agencies to report road blockages and road-related work to the public in one almost automated move.

“I found that to be an issue when I was driving down a street to a meeting and found a road that had construction going on it,” Babroudi said. “It made me 20 minutes late.”

Babroudi, who is from Belmont and is an online student at UMass Amherst, has been working on the platform for two years. He is working to create an all-in-one cloud-based communication software that allows government agencies, partners, and the public to communicate in one space.

“Not only can government agencies communicate with the public through mapping services but also through other platforms like social media, eventually SMS text and phone calls,” Babroudi said. “Sometimes when there’s a road closure that the police department knows about and the fire department has to get to a 911 call, it can really affect their response times.”

Through research, Babroudi found that what should be a simple process for the police to communicate with the fire department sometimes takes over five phone calls.

“This platform is a map that allows everyone to input operation information,” Babroudi said. “Whether or not the DPW is doing work somewhere, everyone can see that information, including government agencies, and really keep a transparent image of what’s going on in the area.”

Badroudi’s Routi concept was one of the 12 companies selected by the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, The Venture Forum, and WorcLab to participate in the 2021-2022 cohort of StartUp Worcester. The joint initiative is designed to help the chosen entrepreneurs launch their businesses as well as gain support in growing their ideas.

Currently, Baroudi has created a prototype. It allows government agencies to post to social media, including Twitter and Facebook. A photo cue is also included.

Going forward, he hopes that this information can be connected to platforms like Waze and Google Maps so that people who are driving would be privy to the information in real time as well. For this version, though, Baroudi is still looking for funding or grants.

“It would automatically be inputted by a government agency,” Baroudi said. “If there’s a 911 call and five firetrucks are there needing to close the road since it’s too dangerous to go on, that 20-30 minutes government agencies can close that road down and reroute everyone on it.”

Routi would be able to not only show temporary shutdowns but also more long term ones.

“The goal honestly is to integrate it into the 911 call system,” Baroudi said. “The second a huge emergency comes up, all a dispatcher would have to do is say confirm for it…to go to social media and say stay away from these roads. Other government agencies, like ambulances, would be able to see those road closures.”

Baroudi, who is a finance major, said that he’s hoping to have a lot of platforms integrated into one on Routi. He equated it to a shared Google Doc. Instead of people having to send out a PDF of where each officer will be, the constantly updated Routi system will allow the officer to not only know where they are assigned but also for the public to recognize where they cannot drive or walk.

“Right now, for the Boston Marathon, how they plan it is they make a PDF file with everyone’s location and make phone calls,” Baroudi said. “I’m trying to make a map-based Google Doc version for operations…All of these people can come together and coordinate where their officers will be, what road will be closed, and where ambulances should be.”

Currently where Baroudi works, they get a document each week of where they need to be, and someone makes over 40 calls to each officer about open shifts and other information. Baroudi said that his part-time position as a police officer in New Hampshire has allowed him to understand more about the need for a program like Routi. “I’ve seen how beneficial this can be,” Baroudi said.

With the StartUp Worcester program, Baroudi has been able to communicate with the Worcester police and fire departments. He, however, did note that Routi can hopefully one day be used throughout the nation with any government agency.

“It has allowed me to increase what I’ve done by 10-fold,” Baroudi said about StartUp Worcester. “I’ve been able to meet with the Chief Innovation Officer…and several other people who have been instrumental in helping me move things forward.”