IBM > Case Studies > Lower Saxony Police Leverages IoT for Crime and Traffic Management

Lower Saxony Police Leverages IoT for Crime and Traffic Management

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Big Data Analytics
Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics

Applicable Industries

Security & Public Safety
Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Human Resources
Warehouse & Inventory Management

Use Cases

Traffic Monitoring
Transportation Simulation

Services

System Integration
Training

About The Customer

The Central Police Directorate of Lower Saxony, managed by Chief of Police Christiana Berg, includes riot police, the police helicopter squadron, river police, mobile units, and the central organization for service dog training. The body also houses a 300-strong department tasked with providing IT services and support to police officers. The Directorate was seeking a solution to improve their crime fighting and traffic management capabilities by making better use of information from a wide range of sources. They needed a system that could provide officers with individually compiled reports about specific locations and types of crimes in near real-time.

The Challenge

The police forces in the German federal state of Lower Saxony were facing challenges in fighting crime and improving traffic flows due to the lack of efficient use of information from various sources. The existing systems stored information about suspects, incidents, victims of crime, and traffic accidents in several systems, making it difficult for officers to gain an overview without consulting multiple data sources. This process was time-consuming and inefficient. Moreover, the technical demands for analyzing and evaluating incidents had increased over the years, necessitating a more advanced business intelligence solution. The police force needed a solution that could provide officers with individually compiled reports about specific locations and types of crimes in near real-time, supported by a unified, consistent event processing and evaluation system.

The Solution

To overcome the challenge, the Lower Saxony police decided to develop a centralized analytics system based on cutting-edge business intelligence technology. The system, known as NIVADIS, was designed to support operational and strategic decision-making at all levels of the organization. The Central Police Directorate, which provides IT services to police forces across Lower Saxony, worked with Steria Mummert Consulting to develop the system based on IBM® Cognos® Business Intelligence. The new solution automatically sends up-to-date information from multiple police operational systems to a central data warehouse three times per day. The information is stored for up to ten years, in accordance with the relevant data protection laws. A suite of analytics applications uses this pool of data to compile customized reports on matters such as crime statistics and traffic accidents. The solution can be accessed by all officers and is used extensively at all levels of the police hierarchy.

Operational Impact

The new solution has significantly improved the operational efficiency of the police force. For instance, if a police unit is tasked with ensuring public safety at a big football game, its officers can prepare by researching fans with a known history of violent behavior. This allows them to predict and mitigate operational risks and take precautions such as deploying additional forces. The system is also helping in many other operational areas: for example, some squadrons are using it to identify hazards on the roads. It has also revealed the fact that thieves often leave discarded goods in ditches by the side of highways – information that is helping police forces target their operations much more accurately. In addition, the solution has made external reporting easier. In the past, data on crime statistics had to be compiled manually, which was a very time-consuming task. Now, these reports can be generated automatically at the click of a mouse, freeing officers from manual paperwork and enabling them to focus on catching criminals.

Quantitative Benefit

22,000 officers across all police stations can obtain a near-real-time overview of all police-related events at the click of a mouse
Data concerning the roughly 550,000 criminal offenses and 200,000 traffic accidents that occur in Lower Saxony each year is collected in a data warehouse, ready for analysis and evaluation
Officers can access all the information using a single interface, view the data in tables, graphs or even maps, and explore it in detail if necessary