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App patrols SA neighbourhoods

Admire Moyo
By Admire Moyo, ITWeb's news editor.
Johannesburg, 21 Apr 2016
PatrolMan has a number of SAPS sector commanders following their areas' incident feeds, says Craig Pedersen, GM of The Computer Guyz.
PatrolMan has a number of SAPS sector commanders following their areas' incident feeds, says Craig Pedersen, GM of The Computer Guyz.

Local IT company The Computer Guyz has released a cloud-based Web and mobile phone app - PatrolMan - targeting neighbourhood watches.

Craig Pedersen, GM of The Computer Guyz, says the official launch date was 4 April, and prior to that the company had two years of development, extensive beta testing, scoping and research.

PatrolMan is available free on Android to neighbourhood watches around the country. However, the 'lite' version of the app is offered free of charge for the first three months and R150 per year thereafter.

In regards to investment in the app, Pedersen says almost R500 000 has been committed to PatrolMan.

"We've identified the same characteristics in most projects. There's a core of 10 to 12 people who manage and run the project, generally aided by 20 to 30 patrollers who actively walk or drive patrols in the area. Beyond this are a few hundred active and interested members. Our app caters to all of these groups."

Using PatrolMan, patrollers capture incident information and photos while they are on duty. That information is, in turn, stored on a Web server for monthly management reports. If a high priority incident is recorded, an SMS notification is sent to the relevant street co-ordinator and project manager.

Hotspot map

According to The Computer Guyz, data usage is nominal and patrollers can summon help by activating the SOS feature which will send out three SMS messages with their GPS co-ordinates. A built-in hotspot map shows patrollers where incidents are most commonly recorded in their area.

To use the app, the neighbourhood watch and patrollers will not pay anything, says Pederson. However, he points out the 'lite' version for members who aren't actively patrolling will cost R150 per year from 2017.

"This gives people plenty of test time and ensures we're able to continue a development cycle with features such as WhatsApp integration, more advanced reporting and analytics," he points out.

"For the members that don't patrol, we've made sure they have access to the critical needs stuff with the 'lite' version of PatrolMan."

PatrolMan Lite has only two features - a "feed" of incidents recorded in the area in live time. As patrollers record incidents, these are, in turn, fed to the members to stay in touch with what's happening around them, Pederson explains.

The second feature is an SOS command that will SMS their GPS co-ordinates and a SOS message to three predetermined numbers. These can be the neighbourhood watch committee patrol phone, friends or neighbours.

SAPS commanders

Pederson notes that at the moment, PatrolMan has a number of SAPS sector commanders following their areas' incident feeds.

"We're hoping they will find as much use in the hotspot mapping and reports. I'm confident that in time, we're going to see more SAPS members tapping into their neighbourhood watch feed to stay up to date. Community police forums (CPF) will draw just as much benefit from being able to report on the activities of watches in their area as a whole."

For security, he says the neighbourhood watch registers on the Web site before getting an access code to the app.

"This code is unique and is then given and managed by the neighbourhood watch to its patrollers and members to ensure access to the system is controlled. Each project can obviously only see their own data stream, unless they authorise their area CPF to access the feed to view a full area, for example."

He says the app has been used to great success in the pilot project and during the live phase.

"An exceptional arrest was made with suspects linked to multiple dockets. We've had reports from pilot projects that there has been a decline in opportunistic crime in the area as they've been able to better plan and manage their patrol patterns based on the street analysis and hotspot reports."

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