CUSC's mapping and routing application allows customers to log on to the Web and enter a location as specific as a street address or as general as a ZIP Code, along with a search radius, to find nearby service centers. Once the customer enters this information, a list of service centers, including address, operating hours, distance from the user, and a phone number for each location, is returned. The customer can then pick a service center from the list and get turn-by-turn directions to that location.

Credit Union Service Corporation (CUSC) is the largest shared credit union branching network, representing 55 percent of all United States locations and 68 percent of credit unions participating in shared branching. CUSC is the only shared branching network representing credit unions, leagues, credit union service organizations (CUSOs), the Credit Union National Association (CUNA), and CUNA Mutual. The CUSC network, which has been in place since 1992, is designed to offer credit union members convenient access to their accounts by making available numerous locations and extended hours. CUSC's Next Generation Network offers credit unions lower cost, better transaction functionality, and greater information capacity, making it possible for more credit unions to offer shared branching to their members.

CUSC, which is headquartered in Duluth, Georgia, needed to provide credit union members with an easy, fast, Web-based way to locate participating credit unions on a map and get driving directions from their current location.

"We were looking for a way to provide all users of our network with a tool that would give them door-to-door directions from any address in the U.S. that they specified to one of our many service centers," says Chris Meadows, network technician, CUSC. "We could have done this with an existing online map service, but we wanted to have control over the presentation of our maps and the materials that were displayed. We wanted to have our maps and map service local to our Web server."

To accomplish this, CUSC selected RouteMAP IMS to have the software in-house and because of its easy-to-use application program interfaces, which were key factors in the decision.

Some application customization was employed to give the routing user interface the same look and feel as other credit union Web pages and to modify how maps look and their locations on the screen.

"The primary benefit derived from this project is the ability to give all users of our network door-to-door directions to various service centers," says Meadows. "Of course, being able to control what the output looks like means we don't have to rely on another organization to decide what should and what should not go on or around our maps."

CUSC's RouteMAP IMS application allows customers to log on to www.cuservicecenters.com and enter a location as specific as a street address or as general as a ZIP Code, along with a search radius, to find nearby service centers. Once the customer enters this information, a list of service centers, including address, operating hours, distance from the user, and a phone number for each location, is returned. The customer can then pick a service center, provide any valid starting address, and get turn-by-turn directions to that location. In addition, a customer can also select a state from CUSC's national map or view recent credit union branch openings.

"Now we are able to provide our customers with an easy-to-use interface that generates door-to-door directions to any of our more than 2,000 service centers across the country," says Meadows. "This service has proven time and time again to be a very large benefit to our network and valuable tool used by many."

More Information

For more information, contact Katie Miller, CUSC (tel.: 678-812-1300 or 866-812-2872, e-mail: 2share@cusc.net), or visit www.cuservicecenters.com.