Now, police to geo-locate callers on 100 helpline
Mumbai police have set up a new software at its main control room to automatically trace the geo-location of its emergency callers to minimise the response time. The city police is the first agency in India to start this service which, they hope, will give a huge fillip to women’s safety and curtail serious crimes like murder, human trafficking, robbery, etc.
The new software will also weed out hoax callers, as the geographic location of the caller will be displaced on the map at main control room. In fact for the present, police feel dialling 100 will be more effective than 103, the women’s helpline.
Often the caller doesn't know the exact location or area they are in, since most are on the move. The new system would now automatically provide their precise location to the emergency call responders at the police main control room. Information on how to access the location of the emergency will help reduce the time of providing help.
“The geo-location of the caller is crucial for emergency services. The people, dialling 100, were generally unable to give accurate information of their location. Now, when you dial 100 in Mumbai, this new system will let emergency responders track your location. We have been running a pilot project since April and we have witnessed an outstanding response. We are working to reduce the emergency response time from 10 minutes to 7 to 8 minutes before launching it officially,” a senior officer of Mumbai police told the Free Press Journal.
All the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) were contacted before taking this novice initiative and they have agreed to cooperate the Mumbai police.
The beat marshals are being trained how to attend the calls they attend from main control room to reduce the response time.
The officer further added that more beat marshalls and Police Control Room (PCR) vans, at local police stations, will be deployed to reduce the emergency response time. Moreover no extra cost will be pushed on to the caller for this software. “The caller will not be charged for this data transferral. Also, the privacy of the caller is not breached as this software will only display the location if you are dialling 100 from Mumbai,” the officer said.
The main control room is getting unnecessarily overloaded as they receive multiple calls simultaneously. This geolocation software will help emergency call attenders to decide if a call refers to an already identified incident.
The Mumbai police control room receives more than 50,000 calls, including missed calls as well as blank calls, in a day. At present 50 call attenders receive the emergency calls at control room in one shift, the officer said that they are mulling an option to expand the number of workstations and enhance the quality of communication kit.
Most of the emergency call attenders (total 50 in a shift and mostly female) at police control room are from outside Mumbai and hence, they lack topographical knowledge of the city to assist emergency callers immediately. “Their lack of Mumbai's topographical knowledge was retarding emergency response time. But this new set up is helping them a lot and the response time has been lessened. We are also taking these officers on field trip to show them the important locations of Mumbai," said the officer.
Mumbai police acquire details about all the users from telecom service providers to update its data base. Till now the name, number and address of the emergency callers were displayed.
The city police is the first agency in India to start this service which, they hope, will give a huge fillip to women’s safety and curtail serious crimes like murder, human trafficking and robbery