Law Enforcement
Location Enhances Safety, Rescue and Protection
Law enforcement agencies constantly have workers in the field, often in dangerous situations. Knowing their location and deploying them effectively can mean the difference between life and death. Location information lets you manage those people more effectively by making it cheap and easy to track fleets of vehicles and remote workers, monitor parolees and sex offenders with less manpower, and provide timely information to employees and the public.
Fleet Tracking
In the private sector, according to an Aberdeen Group study, businesses that implement fleet tracking experience a 14.8% reduction in average travel time per job, a 9.9% decrease in overtime pay, a 27.9% increase in operator compliance, and a 13.2% reduction in fuel costs. This adds up to $5,848 less spent per employee per year. How does it happen? Knowing where your vehicles are all the time enables better routing decisions with fewer miles traveled. Monitoring driver behavior reduces unauthorized side trips, dangerous driving habits, unnecessary overtime, and fraud.
Law enforcement can reap these benefits as well. A recent study by Experian Simmons shows that 9 in 10 adults own a cell phone and most carry it with them everywhere they go. This makes a cell phone’s location a valuable proxy for most people’s location—and means that you can implement a tracking system for a very low cost.
Parolees and Sex Offenders
It is difficult and time-consuming to monitor compliance of parolees, such as sex offenders, to their release conditions. Once they are released, for example, sex offenders are required to stay away from schools. Officers monitor sex offenders’ whereabouts periodically but do not have the manpower to ensure compliance, so the restrictions are mostly left to be self-enforced. Installing geofences around schools can trigger a remote alert when someone with a wireless device bracelet enters a restricted area. Case officers can check in and view the whereabouts of parolees at any time, see where they have been, and receive alerts when they violate the rules of their release.
Keep Everyone Informed
Public safety notices are difficult to disseminate. But some agencies encourage citizens to sign up to receive updates from government agencies on their cell phones. Location information from those cell phones would make it easier to send out messages to citizens in a particularly dangerous area, such as in the path of an approaching hurricane or tsunami.
Likewise, you can quickly roll out information to opted-in employees about traffic, weather, safety warnings, and more.
