What do the greatest crimefighters have in common?
Whether they're on our streets or in our literature, they know how to get inside a criminal's mind, and they seem to have a sixth sense that points out the next emergency hot spot before an event occurs.
With data collection happening everywhere for all kinds of purposes, real-life problem solvers have new ways to enhance their intuition. For solutions to everything from traffic tie-ups to security breeches, public safety agencies can gather disparate, voluminous data and use analytics to derive new insights and uncover trends before they become systemic issues or criminal events.
The IBM Intelligent Operations Center synchronizes and analyzes information gathered from diverse data-collection systems. Patterns revealed through analytics help decision makers anticipate—rather than just react to—problems, and dispatch first responders to the scene faster. The results, such as predictive policing, mean better citizen-centered service...whether minimizing inconveniences, overseeing emergencies or stopping crime.
People for Smarter Cities
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A series of conversations for a smarter planet
Safer citizens of a smarter planet
How technology helps city agencies make sense of data (00:03:31)
Bringing policing up to speed in developing economies
Modernizing a police force by employing new technology simply makes good sense, and can even return dramatic positive results. Improving protection of the public is a given. Economic benefits from reducing crime and streamlining information collection and administration are equally important behind the scenes.
In rapidly developing economies, the higher the crime rate relative to operational spending, the greater the potential for improvement, making the business case even stronger. But how can a country justify the cost of technology investments?
In this study from the IBM Center for Applied Insights, learn about the basis for the modernization argument, and read how to begin the process. Read The business case for modernizing policing in rapidly developing economies.
Keeping our cities safe is a critical factor in their economic viability
Public officials are turning to the same technology advances that businesses have been using—autonomic sense-and-respond capabilities, analytics, visualization and computational modeling—to make our public safety systems smarter, and drive a fundamental shift from responding to events to anticipating and preventing them, when possible.
The social side of
Public Safety
Miami: new patterns for cold cases
The Miami-Dade Police Department, which protects 2.5 million citizens in Florida’s largest county, compensates for outdated and disappearing evidence in old cases by using analytics from solved cases to fill in gaps and answer questions on unsolved ones. Working with IBM specialists, their efforts resulted in a lead-modeling tool called Blue PALMS (Predictive Analytics Lead Modeling Software).
Madrid, Spain: lessons from a terrorist attack
Created in the aftermath of the terrorist train bombings on March 11, 2004, the Integrated Security and Emergency Centre (PDF, 179KB) for Madrid coordinates the resources and efforts of the police, fire, highway, hotline and ambulance units, among others. A 90-foot wall of screens displays traffic video from surveillance cameras, maps with GPS data, and the status and location of personnel.
Chicago, U.S.: citywide surveillance
IBM has worked with the city of Chicago to develop Operation Virtual Shield, which is among the most advanced citywide intelligent security systems. Encompassing one of the world's largest video security deployments, Operation Virtual Shield includes large-scale video surveillance and incorporates license plate recognition, advanced search and trending capabilities.
Vancouver, Canada: proactive and predictive policing
Criminals capitalize on the breakdown of communication between police jurisdictions. The Vancouver Police Department uses a sophisticated crime management system that allows them to collect and analyze crime-related data and share it with other police agencies in the province. Now more crime fighters uncover trends and accurately predict when and where crimes are likely to occur.


