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Technology can transform the public safety

Hi-Tech Security Solutions was invited to a conference discussing Motorola Solution’s offerings in the public safety/safe city environment.

New technologies revolutionise the gathering and analysis of data from the field, and provide sophisticated intelligence tools to turn it into information law enforcement agencies can use. Welcome to the era of the connected police officer, the real-time crime centre, the next-generation patrol vehicle, the integrated multimedia communications centre – and the rapidly dwindling criminal. That’s the vision sketched and shown in Cape Town recently by Motorola Solutions, which has unveiled an array of high-tech public safety solutions that will help create safer cities in South Africa.

The solutions include integrated command and control systems that allow law enforcement agencies to deal with complex situations in a proactive and efficient manner and video surveillance systems that allow sharing information with the relevant people in real time.

(Left to right): Vikela Rankin, managing director Motorola Solutions South Africa, Peter Goulding, public safety specialist Motorola Solutions and Mark Walker, director – Insights & Vertical Industries, IDC.

Speaking at the press event, Vikela Rankin, managing director Motorola Solutions South Africa, said public safety and enterprise professionals need communication solutions that help translate information from multiple sources into intelligence, thus ensuring safer cities. However, technology investments in public safety today must be long lasting, integrated and easy to deploy and use.

“It’s all about sharing information with those who need it the most, when they need it the most,” said Rankin. “There’s a huge amount of information flowing between citizens, responders and agencies. By turning noise into information, information into intelligence, and intelligence into actionable insight, public safety agencies can do the absolute most with less – building safer cities in the process.”

Mark Walker, director – Insights & Vertical Industries IDC Middle East, Turkey and Africa, said, “Terror, natural disasters and crimes have affected the lives of millions and inflicted damages of trillions of dollars in the last 20 years. Consequently, worldwide homeland security spending is rising and is expected reach EURO 215 billion by 2018, compared to EURO 157 billion in 2013. Overall, the number of crimes committed per 1000 people in South Africa has decreased by 2.8% in 2012/3 and public safety investments are growing and will reach EURO 10.2 billion in 2014. The technologies needed to build smart public safety solutions are here now and action needs to be taken to implement them and create smart, viable, stable, prosperous and growing cities of the future.”

Peter Goulding, Motorola Solutions’ premier public safety specialist, and former chief superintendent at the Metropolitan Police says that data is the key factor for improving public safety – and using it smartly is a crucial factor for safer cities.

“Our new communications and data technologies provide real-time data to and from the field, sophisticated intelligence tools for processing it, enabling information to be shared to responders and key decision makers. This helps to improve decision making and can have a direct effect on the efficiency of public safety units and the security of the population.”

Goulding addressed as well the role of video solutions: “new technologies revolutionise the ways surveillance video from the field is used. Currently 99% of all recorded surveillance video is not being used at real-time or not being used at all; these technologies transform videos to valuable assets for qualitative and accurate decision making.”

Key facts and solutions highlights

Connect with the city

Motorola’s Command & Control solution helps officers approach an incident armed with more operational intelligence. The solution provides public safety with a view that integrates multiple disparate systems into a unified operational workflow. In Cape Town, the full solution will demonstrate better situational awareness, which allows for more proactive responses resulting in smarter and safer decisions:

* Establish direct communications with first responders by using the integrated voice console to share relevant information quickly over a voice channel.

* Enable collaboration between different agencies by connecting disparate voice systems.

* Pull relevant information such as dispatcher notes, person, place or asset information and snapshots to enhance decision-making.

* Access relevant event information from sensors placed in the community such as automatic licence plate recognition (ALPR), gunshot detection or alarm systems.

* Link video from a video surveillance system directly into the command and control video module where a detective or video analyst can remotely monitor the feed and dispatch resources when required. Streaming video can be shared between communications centres and responders with real-time video intelligence.

Proceed with intelligence

Motorola’s Connected Law Enforcement Officer technologies help officers increase efficiency by completing tasks from the field and staying safe with mission-critical voice and data, updated threat warnings and automatic health and status monitoring. Motorola’s Connected Patrol Vehicle solutions and technologies act as a virtual partner for law enforcement officials in the field. Officers can be ready for what’s next by utilising the information generated by multiple technologies and solutions working together to increase situational awareness including:

* The integrated video synopsis system that allows users rapid review and debriefing of recorded surveillance video to quickly locate and investigate any event.

* The integrated video analytics system that performs real-time analysis of the video stream to identify and generate alerts for a variety of user-defined events relating to people, vehicles and static objects. This enables automatic detections, alerts and responses to events, as they emerge.

* These are supported by a range of portable and mobile radios and mobile computing devices (including the APX 7500, MTP3000, MTM5500, SL4000). The Android-powered LEX 700 Mission-Critical Handheld is the first purpose-built smart phone device for public safety LTE broadband and is designed to deliver multimedia data, photos, video and voice.

Manage the complexity

Motorola’s professional services help with visioning, design, planning and security to ensure that customers are well prepared for organisational transformation and can demonstrate measurable improvements to their communities.

Ideal for protecting customers’ technology investments, Service from the Start includes technical support, comprehensive device repair coverage and advance exchange of system components.

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