Ford has a new way to help police agencies save lives, prevent injuries and potentially help save millions of taxpayer dollars.
As agents of law and order, police officers monitor driving behavior to ensure the safety of the motoring public. But until now, unless investigators removed a police vehicle's black box and pulled the data after a traffic crash, no one has been able to monitor police vehicle operating conditions.
To help address this issue, Ford and Telogis have co-developed an industry-first telematics solution that builds on Ford's existing Crew Chief powered by Telogis and is designed specifically to help meet the monitoring needs of law enforcement agencies. The technology provides intelligent data and analytics law enforcement agencies need to dramatically improve officer safety and driving behavior, heighten situational and operational awareness, and help reduce vehicle maintenance costs.
With the addition of Ford Telematics on Ford Police Interceptor vehicles, police administrators can monitor officer location and vehicle operating conditions. While many agencies have policies that require officers to avoid excessive speed and that promote safety belt use, until now they had no visibility into the real-time driving habits of officers to enable training and encourage safe driving behaviors.
Ford Telematics for Law Enforcement builds upon the core design and engineering philosophy of Ford Police Interceptor for maximizing officer safety. And this is key to helping prevent police crashes by mitigating high-speed driving and encouraging safety belt use.
"We have a responsibility to the communities we serve and to our fellow officers to make safety behind the wheel one of our top priorities," said Vartan Yegiyan, director of police transportation II and commanding officer, Los Angeles Police Department. "The collaborative process that exists with the LAPD, Ford and Telogis has allowed us to customize this solution to meet the unique demands of our organization and other Ford police fleets."
"Vehicle accidents are the leading cause of officer fatalities, and even the slightest improvements in driver training and behavior within law enforcement organizations can potentially save lives," said Bill Frykman, manager, business and product development, Ford Motor Company. "Whether in emergency operation or not, vehicle data from this technology, in context with different driving situations will help illustrate to police organizations where changes can be made that will have a profound effect on officer safety."
"Working with Ford, we're delivering a solution for training and visibility for police departments that will be a game changer for their safety programs," said Greg Dziewit, vice president, OEM business at Telogis. "Combining exclusive Ford Interceptor vehicle data with the Telogis platform provides law enforcement agencies with unprecedented levels of intelligence about their fleet operations to drive safety, improve situational awareness during critical events and reduce overall costs."
While firearm-related police fatalities often make headlines, police administrators know traffic fatalities and injuries represent a greater statistical threat to officer safety. According to data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, from 2004 to 2013, an average of nearly 55 officers were killed each year as a result of a firearms-related incident. For the same time period, an average of 64 officers a year died in traffic-related incidents.
"Traffic-related incidents have been the leading cause of law enforcement fatalities in 14 of the last 16 years," said Craig W. Floyd, National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund chairman and CEO. "Leveraging technology to improve law enforcement vehicle safety is integral to reducing the number of officers killed in traffic-related incidents each year."
In addition to safety belt use monitoring, the new system builds upon existing capabilities of Ford Crew Chief powered by Telogis to provide visibility into police vehicle lateral acceleration, spins, yaw rates, pursuit mode, accelerator pedal position, brake pedal position, engine torque, antilock braking system events, and stability control and traction control events.
Agencies can also get individualized scorecards on police officers' driving behaviors based on these inputs.
The system is another example of Ford's work to help enhance police officer safety. Last year, Ford unveiled a surveillance mode feature that uses existing sensor technology to automatically roll up windows, lock doors and sound an alarm if, when parked, someone approaches the vehicle from the rear.
