Western Australia Police Service

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The Challenge

WAPOL is responsible for the large st single police jurisdiction in the world, an area of 2.5 million km2, with 5,000 pol ice office rs an d 1,000 pol ice staff serving a community of 1.9 million residents.Its structure comprises three regions, 14 districts and 163 police stations. The Greater Perth area alone extends over 9,000 km2. Two distinct operational regions service its population of 1.3 million residents.

In 2002, an independent review found that WAPOL’s 30 year old analogue voice radio network was reaching the end of its lifespan and recommended replacement by the end of 2007 to avoid significant risk of service disruption.

Consequently, in July 2003 WAPOL initiated the Police Metropolitan Radio Network (PMRN) project. The scope of the $58 million QQ project included:

• The procurement and implementation of a new digital voice radio network, a limited mobile data service, and an Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system.
• Construction of new radio equipment rooms and staff accommodation in existing police buildings.
• Installation of radio base station equipment at 31 communications sites.
• Installion of new equipment in more than 800 police vehicles.

WAPOL’s long-term partner, Fujitsu Australia, provided project management, system integration and change management expertise to a multi-disciplinary project team consisting of representatives of WAPOL, Fujitsu Australia, Motorola Australia and Ansaldo STS (formerly Union Switch & Signal).

Motorola was contracted to provide the voice radio network as well as key components of the mobile data network. These included the central site Message Switch and AVL server and the mobile data devices to be installed in the vehicles. Ansaldo STS was contracted to supply Dataradio Inc. equipment to build the mobile data network and provide the AVL units to be fitted into the vehicles.

“Fujitsu provided invaluable advice on the procurement strategy and played a major role in the way WAPOL engaged third party vendors,” Acting Superintendent (Communications Infrastructure Program) Lance Martin said.

The Solution

A partnering-based approach

With 4 parties involved in the implementation, a key obstacle was defining a common project management approach and language for the project without compromising the vendors own proven delivery methodologies. Utilising Fujitsu’s own adaptable Project Management Method (PMM), Fujitsu’s experienced project managers worked with all parties to define a common project management approach that enabled all parties to communicate effectively without compromising the project management processes within each individual organisation.

The mobile data network presented a significant integration challenge. Components from Motorola, Union Switch & Signal and WAPOL had to be integrated to ensure robust and reliable end-to-end transaction processing of critical police tasking and operational information.

This included establishing interfaces to WAPOL’s existing Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system and operational databases on its mainframe and midrange client server environments. Fujitsu staff, working with all parties, adopted a “one team” philosophy, and developed a low risk integration approach that utilised a purpose built System Integration Facility to develop and test all integration points early in the project lifecycle, enabling the project to proceed with a high degree of confidence, and without compromising the business critical 24x7 production environment.

The greater Perth metropolitan area is serviced by more than 3,000 operational police officers and a fleet of more than 800 vehicles based in more than 60 police stations. To manage the challenge of fitting out the fleet and preparing the user community, WAPOL established a dedicated team led by a Fujitsu project manager partnered with a senior WAPOL officer to ensure that critical operational vehicles were off the road for as little time as possible.

In addition, the PMRN training team developed a training program that drew on the experience gained by Fujitsu on other major rollouts that would minimise operational policy duty time loss, yet be detailed enough to impart officers with a firm understanding of the new radios and applications.

Better solutions to improve accuracy and officer safety

The voice and data radio networks were successfully commissioned for operational trial on schedule in December 2006 and the full rollout commenced in May 2007. The PMRN has already been widely accepted by operational police who now have significantly improved access to the information they require to do their jobs. Traffic officers are reporting an increase in the identification of unlicensed vehicles and drivers through the use of the mobile data solution. Police dispatchers are reporting that they are now able to more quickly identify and deploy units to tasks due to the vehicle locations being visible on their CAD terminals. Plus there are examples of dispatchers being able to deploy support quickly to officers requiring assistance in violent situations due to the AVL technology clearly identifying the officers’ vehicle.

The Benefits

Innovative solutions to maximise first responder outcomes

The new infrastructure significantly changes the way WAPOL manages its operations in the Greater Perth metropolitan area. Operational police officers now use an encrypted, secure voice radio network; have access to police operational data in their vehicles; and the locations of all tasking vehicles will be known to the Police Operations Centre at any given time through the AVL system.

In particular, the mobile data and AVL capability enables police dispatchers to track the location of tasking vehicles using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. It enables the transmission of GPS data coordinates and vehicle identifiers to the CAD system for displaying vehicle locations on the Advanced Tactical Mapping facility in the Police Communications Centre. It also enables the viewing of historical movements of vehicles by replaying logged GPS coordinates. In addition, it provides detailed reporting and audit trail capabilities and dynamic position polling of vehicles.

“Performance baselines have been established against which to measure the adoption of the new tools and to assess the impact on police operations. Average incident response times have dropped by 11 percent. These results are boosting community confidence and the new network completely changes the business in terms of dispatching,” Acting Superintendent Martin said.