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Round table event on mobile information
Mobile Information is a topical subject within the police service across the UK. Motorola, NPIA and Northern Constabulary took part in a round table event to share some of the experiences gained both from real life trials and the day-to-day experiences of mobile data early adopters.
The event was conducted at the medieval 12th century Clink Prison Museum in central London. Would the trusty notebook and pen seem as old fashioned to officers in the future, as this dark and forbidding location did to the attendees? Present were Gary Maughan, Relationship Director, UK&Ireland for Motorola’s Government & Public Safety business; Sergeant Alastair Garrow, Northern Constabulary; and Annette Henley, Lead Engineer, National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA).
Wireless broadband and mobile data
Lead Engineer on the NPIA Mobile Programme Annette Henley began by outlining the Programme’s aim of facilitating the transition of existing mobile technology into the hands of police officers. The programme has been accelerated with the Home Office ring-fencing £50 million towards implementing mobile information projects for front line capability.
Recently, NPIA was involved in two trial projects in partnership with Motorola and Northrop Grumman on wireless broadband – projects that according to Henley are setting markers for the direction the police service will be taking with technology.
At the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth the security team joined with Motorola to build a mesh network that blanketed the conference venue and surrounding areas with camera coverage. Evidence gathering teams on foot and horseback were equipped with small video cameras transmitting footage back to Bronze Command via a fixed broadband connection.
A potentially explosive football match between AFC Bournemouth and Leeds United was used to test the technology in maintaining order and creating a safe environment for supporters. A mesh network was built to connect CCTV cameras and handheld cameras to a control room using a fixed line connection. Patrol teams were sent images of suspects to their TETRA PDA terminals equipped with WAP. The mesh CCTV network combined with secure voice and data communications on the TETRA infrastructure provided the information.
"I was very impressed by the technology and the innovation that the companies involved were able to make at the request of police officers,” remarked Henley. “One of the lessons of the trials was that the hardest part of mobilising information is the implementation of the operational changes that are necessary to support the technology.”
These changes include new ways of working and also solving problems that at face value seem small but are very important. At the Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth, cameras that had initially been placed on officers’ heads had to be moved to their shoulders, explained Gary, due to a ”Blairwitch Project” shake becoming all too apparent when officers started interacting with members of the public. The nodding and camera shake quickly became too much for the officers in Bronze Command.
Both trials also highlighted the potential that existing infrastructure is not providing, even though the capability is already there, pointed out Motorola’s Gary Maughan.
Finger print matching with the national database, for example, is often done via GPRS even though it could be done via TETRA. TETRA could also transmit images and photos taken at a scene; technology could also pinpoint an officer’s location on a map in the control room. However, bringing in this type of technology cannot be done for its own sake, warned Henley, as forces could be overwhelmed. “You have to be careful how you introduce new technology and applications. Otherwise you are distributing to officers a piece of technology that they won't use.”
During the Bournemouth trial officers had two cameras – one mounted on their shoulders and one carried in their hands. “We found the guys in Bronze Command did not want high quality streaming, so the hand-helds were used for lower quality, while the higher quality ones were used for the needs of the guy on the street. So both parties got what they wanted,” said Maughan.
When it comes to mobile data, the requirements of various people clearly have to be taken into account. Bronze Command may want to see everything, but Gold may only want to see key events. Making broadband more usable in an incident has to be incorporated in such a way that officers are not distracted by hardware in a real emergency where people are dying.
Also important is that whatever technology is deployed should remain invisible. In Bournemouth at the Labour Party Conference, explained Maughan, although a number of technologies were used the officers on the street and the officers in bronze command only perceived one technology. As for plans for any further wireless broadband trials, Henley said that although some forces may be carrying out their own research, NPIA’s current priority was to deal with getting forces mobile on the streets for October this year. “But we will go back to this area in the future.”
Northern Constabulary – mobile data on the streets
Sergeant Alastair Garrow of Northern Constabulary in Scotland spoke about the tangible and – also important – cost effective benefits that the IMAGIN mobile data system was currently bringing to his force.
Northern Constabulary looks after a massive area – 720 officers cover a geographic area roughly equivalent to the size of Belgium. Here, a 999 call might take an hour to be answered by officers who have to travel long distances. “We are very reliant on Airwave because we don't have full GPRS coverage.”
Sergeant Garrow was involved in the management of the IMAGIN mobile data system which provides images to officers using Airwave and the Motorola MTH800 handset used by all Scottish officers. Northern Constabulary was the first UK force to provide every officer with on-the-street access to images and CCTV footage. "An operator places the image on a website space and the officer on the street picks it up using his handset. We deliver images and briefings that way.”
The technology has been running for six months, and has already had a positive operational impact, explained Sergeant Garrow. In one case a firearms team was able to save 20-30 minutes in reaching an incident by being able to access an image of the suspect without having to detour to the nearest office.
In another case, a missing person was identified before leaving Northern Constabulary's “patch” on a bus to Glasgow. “If they had got on the bus it could have taken weeks to find him but we had the image sent to the officers and they identified him.”
IMAGIN is part of a staged approach being undertaken by ACPOS, which has helped with the budget. In fact the IMAGIN application only cost £10 thousand because the force used existing technology and it already had the notebooks.
The introduction of electronic notebooks has not been problematic. Contrary to popular belief, statements are not “typed out” on the PDAs – they are written onto the touchscreens in the officer's own writing. “That's very important – in Scotland fiscal services want to see the hand-written statement so we hand over images of the notes. The clean data such as vehicle registration is typed out, and is slower but you are saving on the back office. And that's what you want - you don't want people writing the same thing a dozen times,” said Sergeant Garrow.
In day to day situations a police officer who is engaging with a suspect can request an image from an operator via voice TETRA – the operator places that image on the web and it is then accessed by the officer. There is no need to divert the officer's concentration into inputting identification details such as name and date of birth. “The officer is still looking at the person and keeping an eye on them,” added Maughan.
Previously this process took up more time because operators had to describe a suspect’s photo to officers over the radio. In fact, Maughan added that billing evidence suggests that Northern Constabulary is actually using up less data traffic as a result of this process, which has had an impact on costs.
Northern Constabulary has shown that the ability to deliver mobile data is available through the use of existing technology, pointed out Maughan. The application Motorola helped to devise for Northern Constabulary can take a five megabyte picture and reduce it to 12k, which is delivered in 15-20 seconds – and this time could be further reduced. “From an officer's perspective, you no longer have a person looking for an excuse to get away. The intelligence has been moved from the person on the street to the officer.”
When Motorola started looking at the requirements of the police, research showed that the process of sending images from one force to another took something like 15 hours. “That's 14 times longer than the golden hour of a missing child.”
Bandwidth was also widely discussed, but as a resource to be used sensibly. “If a person has gone missing in one area, then you don't want to send the image everywhere. You start where they went missing, and as the investigation goes on increase the area of coverage. Operationally, forces are becoming very clever in how they are using that bandwidth.”
A trial in Jersey has taken place that tested video over TETRA, said Maughan. “Using video stopped everyone talking, and the network became less congested.” The old adage of a picture being worth a thousand words has never been truer.
Maughan ended by saying that technology companies like Motorola had the responsibility not to limit the bandwidth pipe; and technology should not be bearer dependent. Henley agreed and added that ultimately the most resilient technology by its very nature is multi-bearer – and the technology that will last the longest will also be the most upgradable.
Round table discussion video (links to Youtube).
