Smarter Government – Leicestershire Constabulary applies mapping technology to improve community safety
Leicestershire Constabulary provides a policing service to 925,000 people in Leicester and the surrounding area. The force aims to improve public confidence in the force by ensuring that all its officers are more keenly focused on the community safety issues that matter most to local people. More effective use of technology enables Leicestershire Constabulary to allocate the right resources to incidents—contributing to faster responses, mileage reduction, and an improvement in public confidence.
The force has implemented a satellite mapping and tracking system, known as iR3, built by Microsoft partner L&A Consultants. The technology plots crime statistics and data on an interactive map. It also tracks where global positioning system (GPS) fitted police vehicles have patrolled in response to that data. Patrol vehicles fitted with GPS devices leave “snail trails” on iR3 maps, which display how many visits and how much time officers have spent in neighbourhood priority areas dealing with local issues.
iR3 uses the Microsoft Bing Maps for Enterprise (formerly known as Virtual Earth) mapping environment to access data for analysis, so the force can ensure that patrols have followed agreed targets and priorities. The solution maps where incidents are taking place and is linked to police command and control incident data and duty rotas, fed by tracking devices in vehicles and Airwave radios. It allows the Local Policing Unit Commander to draw “waymarkers” on the map, which log on the system when a police vehicle has passed through them.
Map showing incident analysis for a specific location
Evaluation of the impact of the solution shows a dramatic increase in police activity focused on crime hotspots and antisocial behaviour, falling crime, and reduced mileage — leading to significantly increased officer time spent in neighbourhood priority areas.
You can read the full story of how Leicestershire Constabulary is applying Microsoft technology to improve community policing here.
Posted by Ian