Paradise Valley Police Department uses AirLink® In-Vehicle Routers for Critical Communications
Sierra Wireless Case Study | In-Vehicle Communications for Public Safety
Case Background
Located in Maricopa County between Scottsdale and Phoenix, Paradise
Valley is Arizona’s most affluent community with a population approaching 13,000 citizens. Despite its small size, the community is home to over 8 resorts making it one of the state’s premier tourist destinations. When the police department and town council noticed an uptick in burglaries there was obvious concern.
Challenge Summary
- Town council formed task force to investigate solutions which would reduce crime rates
- Minimal technology deployed in law enforcement vehicles; task force looked at new technology solutions and how they would benefit the community
- Recommended 15 new technologies to be deployed
- Geography of region dictated the need for a solution that would support multiple carrier networks and many applications
Solution Summary
AirLink® Solution recommended by integration partner as communication platform that could support all the technologies over multiple carrier networks and securely connect them to the police department.
Benefits Summary
Single in-vehicle router supports CAD/AVL including turn-by-turn directions and call detail, records management system on tablets, ticketing and accident forms, access to NCIC databases and video surveillance. Seamless integration with third-party components and applications.
Challenge Detail
In such a small community crime is typically rare, so in 2012 when the police department and town council noticed an uptick in burglaries there was obvious concern. Following several years of lean government spending, the impact of not being able to hire more officers or deploy new technology was being felt.
Town council took a novel approach, and formed a task force including 30 citizens from the community to propose recommendations for council to consider to ensure the crime rates didn’t continue to increase. Over a three month period, the task force, with the help of an external consultant, provided recommendations for the police department to deploy up to 15 different technologies including license plate readers (fixed and mobile), rugged in-vehicle tablets that would provide a portable office for officers, and electronic citations. The recommendations were approved by council and the police department was given a $2M budget and tasked with deploying the technologies to improve overall policing and efficiency.
Until the task force recommendations were made, Paradise Valley Police Department
had limited technologies available for officers other than hand-held radios.
Solution Detail
Once the recommendations were approved, the department engaged IXP to help them select the technologies. Their goal was to work with as few vendors as possible. IXP provided an overview of state of the art technologies for law enforcement, and the police department did their own research, searching out vendors that could provide the most complete solutions. They traveled to a variety of law enforcement agencies in the US to talk to other departments about their deployments.
After their evaluation, Paradise Valley selected L-3 Communications as their technology partner. L-3 proposed an “all in one” solution that included an in-vehicle router that would support an array of technology applications in the vehicle including license plate recognition, mobile tablets, electronic ticketing, mobile in-vehicle cameras, and body-worn cameras. L3 was asked to source and provide all this technology and integrate it into the police department vehicles.
The L-3 solution included Sierra Wireless’ AirLink Solution. One of the key factors in selecting the AirLink was the requirement for a communications router that would work with multiple cellular networks. Paradise Valley is located close to mountains and typical carrier coverage across their service area is approximately 60-70% which wasn’t adequate. The AirLink Solution enables them to deploy multiple carrier radios simultaneously, with the router selecting the best available network based on location, time of day, speed etc.
Project Results
In just over 18 months, everything has changed for the police department. Paradise
Valley now has all the technology a law enforcement professional could ask for,
including body worn cameras which have now been deployed.
- The dispatch system has been updated and augmented to provide patrol vehicles with call details including turn by turn navigation.
- A records management system, accessible from portable tablets, keeps records electronic, up to date and in one place.
- Ticketing, accident reports, driver exchange and tow forms are now all done electronically.
- Officers are able to access NCIC databases from their tablets wherever they are so they can always access the latest information.
- From each vehicle, they have video surveillance, and shift commanders can do a “live look in” to see what is going on around any police vehicle at any time. Video is stored on-board and uploaded when vehicles return to the station.
All of the in-vehicle technology is supported by the AirLink vehicle router. Paradise
Valley has also deployed the AirLink Mobility Manager and AirLink Connection Manager
to ensure compliance with CJIS requirements.
The IT team is excited and busy training officers and back-office staff on all the new technology. “The biggest challenge right now is ensuring it all stays running”, said Lt Michael Cole.
“We are capturing so much data that the next challenge will be ensuring we have the
resources to not only store it for easy archival but be able to access it for a variety of
uses including analysis.”
“The community involvement in the whole process has been excellent”, said Lt Michael Horn “Together as a group we all share the goals of making our community as safe as it can be. Our town council has done a great job keeping citizens involved and updated as to the progress of the project through social media.”
Contact USAT
USAT is a value-added reseller of Sierra Wireless IoT-enabled communications devices and networking software. USAT specializes in improving the efficiency of our clientele’s mission-critical operations by implementing wireless communication solutions for data acquisition. USAT provides, configures, and deploys durable, secure, and field-tested intelligent network devices to fit the exacting requirements and budgets of our clients' wireless connectivity initiatives.
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