Police launch smartphone app to speed up response
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THE Royal Thai Police yesterday officially launched an application called "Police i lert u" to allow people to inform police of emergencies via their smartphones. National police chief Pol General Somyos Poompan-muang said Police i lert u was designed to
“We would love to get Police i lert u [to be used] as the 191 emergency number in digital format. We would also love to see people use Police i lert u – then it would be ‘Police i love u’,” he said.
After an emergency call on 191, it takes police an average of more than 10 minutes to reach the location, but this app could halve that response time.
On average, there are 7,000-8,000 calls on 191 per day, about 80-90 per cent of which are requests for directions or fake calls.
The application was developed and provided by a Thai software firm, Anywhere 2 Go Company, free of charge. It has been deployed through 88 police stations in Bangkok with 5,000 police officers using it.
Kittinan Anuphan, chief executive officer and founder of Anywhere 2 Go, said the emergency message sent via this app contained the exact location as identified by the Global Positioning System.
Thwarting fake alerts
The alert is routed to the police station responsible for that area.
To use the app, people have to register with their name, e-mail, and phone number. This is to prevent fake alerts.
The Police i lert u is also used by polices accessing with police’s user ID.
Police i lert u has two main functions, alert and chat. In the alert function, users can share locations, add one photo, and send text messages to the police, while with the chat function, they can communicate with others who use the app.
Meanwhile, on police side, under the alert function, police are notified of emergencies, and under the chat function, officers can communicate with one another instantly.
The company spent a year to develop the app and training police personnel before its official launch. It was soft-launched in the middle of April, and so far there have been more than 10,000 downloads. The company expects 100,000 downloads by the end of this year, Kittiphan Kittinan said. All messages sent to police via the app are stored on the cloud, hosted and supported by the company.
Police i lert u is the latest in the “i lert u” family of emergency apps mainly for insurance companies and hospitals. There have been 700,000 downloads of i lert u apps.
