Interchange launches a new mobile data solution for police and uniformed services

For police officers, and other uniformed service providers, gathering information can often require more than simply filling in a form or taking notes. The ability to record pictures, video, sound samples or dictation can often prove easier, quicker and more effective compared with using traditional pen and paper. Capturing this type of information has traditionally required multiple devices, all of which need to feed into one standard reporting platform back at the police station. The traditional process is time consuming, meaning that officers spend less time in the community.

Available immediately, the Interchange ePocketBook electronic notebook provides officers and other uniformed services with the ability to easily record a variety of text and multimedia information using their BlackBerry® smartphones. Using the ePocketBook incident management system, users can pick up assigned incidents or create new ones wirelessly from the field. Entries are date and time stamped and held on a timeline for review on a BlackBerry smartphone, as well as being instantly and securely synchronized with the ePocketBook server behind the firewall. With its added GPS support the solution enables the logging of the user's location data against entries for later verification, if required.

This solution enables police officers and other uniformed service providers to take notes on their BlackBerry smartphone without the need for excessive paperwork - and ensure that back office systems are updated in real time, thereby releasing key personnel and other staff from administrative activities. The time saved means more time in the community, enabling providers to maintain a more visible and responsive presence. By enabling additional efficiencies in back-office data processing ePocketBook can bring further improvements to the responsiveness of the police or other field work organisations.

The multimedia features of the application also means that police officers can, for example, easily and accurately photograph non-compliances or vehicle positions and road markings. These can then be transmitted electronically together with the officer's notes, automatically annotated with the date and time, as well as GPS coordinates. Inevitably this leads to faster and more efficient incident management which, in turn, enables expensive resources to be used more effectively and delivers improvements to the quality of service. Compared with police officers using traditional notepads, officers using the ePocketBook application on their BlackBerry smartphones are less likely to return to a police station after gathering information.

In addition, mobile data access provides supervisors with valuable management information. For example, they can view and print out a full audit trail of all mobile patrol activity and track incidents (i.e. see what's current, resolved and cases that need to be allocated).

Other benefits include:
" Process improvement through reduced duplication of effort
" Reduced administration time for operational police officers
" Increased speed of updating back office systems
" Increased police effectiveness and visibility
" Intelligence sharing and capture

Interchange Group is a member of the BlackBerry® Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Alliance Program with a 30 year proven track record in integrating voice, data and security technologies to create tailored solutions that deliver a defined ROI for mobile workers, field force automation and outsourcing solutions.