O2 Airwave and Lancashire Constabulary have launched one of the UK’s largest ever police hand-held mobile data trials.
Some 250 police officers and 30 support staff will be equipped with pocket computers from which they can access information sources. In a pre-trial, the process of a missing person report was reduced from two hours to 20 minutes.
Access to mobile data is intended to enable officers to be more efficient and effective, spending around an hour per shift longer out of the police station.
The trial of the O2 Airwave Mobile Application Gateway (MAG) will enable officers to access the Police National Computer (PNC) within seconds. At the moment, officers have to contact their control room to request checks, a process which can take several minutes
Officers will also be able to run detailed checks on suspects using Lancashire Constabulary’s own local intelligence databases and receive briefings and tasks from colleagues and supervisors whilst they are on patrol, amongst a host of other applications.Â
The officers will carry O2 XDA II mobile data devices and use O2UK’s GPRS network, accessed via the O2 Airwave Mobile Application Gateway (MAG), provided in conjunction with Siemens Communications.
The MAG has in-built intelligence which allows it to be able to interpret a users’ request for information, to then access the right sources of information, aggregate that information together, and return it to the user in a logical and intelligent format.