Date:12/06/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/06/12/stories/2004061211570700.htm

Tamil Nadu

Modern gadgets for Madurai, Coimbatore control rooms

By K.T. Sangameswaran

CHENNAI, JUNE 11. After Chennai, the Madurai and Coimbatore city police control rooms will have the modern "Automatic Call Distribution" (ACD) and "Automatic Vehicle Locators" (AVL) facilities.

Tenders have been floated for the project costing Rs.1.40 crores (Rs.70 lakhs each for Madurai and Coimbatore). Technical evaluation of equipment is on.

Digital mapping of the cities, a pre-requisite for the introduction of the AVL, has already been completed.

According to the present schedule, the project should be completed in the next three months, official sources told The Hindu .

The Chennai police control room is perhaps the first city in the country to have both the call distribution and vehicle locator facilities. The ACD may be common in control rooms of other States. Ahmedabad has AVL in four vehicles.

The sources say the AVL is proposed to be fixed in 30 police patrol vehicles in each of the two cities.

The ACD installation will help the public get easy access to the control room in an emergency. A caller need not have to repeatedly dial the control room if the number is engaged.

The call will automatically get distributed to any of the other lines, which will be provided.

The number and the area from which the call lands will automatically get recorded. Also, all calls will be recorded, and thus reducing the scope for the personnel to trot out excuses that information on an emergency was not received will be reduced.

Thanks to the digital mapping facility, the AVL will help the control room personnel monitor the movement of patrol vehicles, which will be facilitated with the presence of GPS modem in the vehicles.

The system will enable the control room personnel to locate patrol vehicles even when they are in interior areas and direct them to the places where their services are required. Further, the location of a patrol vehicle at any given time can be found out.

The sources explain that the facilities have been provided to ensure that the personnel reach the public during emergency, particularly in crime prevention. The success of the system depends mainly on the personnel who use it so that the public will be benefited.