Alert service Police: Location based services for officers in the field

The alert service is a project offering the application of real-time location awareness and location alerts for policemen on the street.

Customer & need

The alert service project is performed by order of the Dutch police region Groningen and the Board Research and Innnovation of the Police Information Management Cooperative (CIP). The Notification Service is meant to increase efficiency of field operations and safety of officers. Officers need to be notified real-time of incidents or events that occur in their proximity (hotspots), they need an always up-to-date map of locations of attention in their surrounding (e.g. addresses of people that have due fines) and the location of their colleagues in real-time. This information makes it possible to better use resources in the field, to increase effectiveness of their field activities and increase officers’ safety.

Solution

The solution is based on the Geodan Movida Mobile Client, that supports PDA devices equipped with GPS location receivers and exchanges location and information with the backend system of the Police, in this case integrated with the P-Info system.

Functionality

A day on the street with an officer:

Police officer Johnson, equipped with a PDA (personal digital assistant) to access P-Info, is on duty. The PDA is linked to a GPS receiver which means his position is defined frequently with a precision of around 10 metres. The screen shows his position on a detailed map, as well as the position of his colleagues.

When walking into the next street, the policeman hears a special alarm sound: a notification. With the pop-up that simultaneously appears on his screen, he sees that he is near the house of someone with an outstanding fine. Through P-Info he can request further details on the fine. The infringer is at home, so he can simply collect the fine.

On other spots, the map displays symbols showing that his colleagues have reached concrete agreements, e.g. with bartenders on the prohibition to play loud music. When clicking on such a symbol, a couple of essential data appear on the agreement, but it is also possible to view more details on the reached agreement directly in P-Info. There is no noise pollution at present, so the policeman pays a quick visit to the bar to inform the bartender that he has noted that.

Alert Service Police at the 8 o’clock news in Holland

For Geodan to be an item at the 8 o’clock news is unique. It happened twice in April 2007! The NOS Journaal reported about the Dutch police region Groningen where thirty officers in the field work with PDA devices.
Look here!

Further information