The City of Tshwane yesterday unveiled the first phase of the Namola app, which will be used to help the Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD) respond to crime scenes faster.
The app is now live within the police - and the plan is to have all officers trained and actively using Namola before introducing it to the public, said Alan Knott-Craig, CEO at Project Isizwe.
The app will be available to the general public by the end by December, he added.
The new location-based system app is designed for the Tshwane Metro Police Department and is to be used as a communication link between officers on the ground and the control room, as well as to give citizens a direct link to their nearest police officers.
The app will only be introduced to the users once the TMPD are comfortable with the first phase, that is, the police being able to respond faster between themselves - which will lead to them being able to respond faster to the public, explained Knott-Craig.
"They just want to make sure police are ready and have tested it before they go live to avoid disappointment."
According to the executive mayor of Tshwane, councillor Kgosientso Ramokgopa, the introduction of the app means the average dispatch times are reduced from two minutes 38 seconds to 11 seconds.
Tablets installed into TMPD patrol vehicles create a parallel communication channel between the control room and the officers on the ground.
This link enables the control room to send broadcast messages such as photos and written descriptions of stolen vehicles and persons of interest to all or selected vehicles.
The exploitation of this new knowledge would not be possible without the involvement of the private sector, said Ramokgopa.
"The Namola app is another ground-breaking product we have introduced with the help of Project Isizwe to report and attend to crime scenes at the touch of a button."
The benefit of this tool is it allows the voiceless and less literate groups to use their power to report incidents without difficulty, said Ramokgopa.
"The partnership with Project Isizwe has enabled the City to ignite wonderful things for its populace," said Ramokgopa.
The commitment of the political leaders made this milestone possible, said Knott-Craig.
"With their support, the next logical extension is to roll out the massively powerful tool to all emergency services."
The launch also marked the city's ground-breaking free WiFi Project which hit a major milestone of one million unique connections on 28 October 2015.
The Tshwane Free WiFi service is the largest government-funded public Free WiFi in South Africa and has enabled over one million unique users to get online since it launched in November 2013, logging over 40.4 million connections to date.
"We are drawing a demographic dividend from our youth who are now able to engage in rich deep conversations with the city and provide meaningful feedback at the touch of a button," added Ramokgopa.
By leveraging the city's free WiFi initiative, citizens will now be able to alert the Tshwane Metro Police of crime in progress which immediately shares the GPS coordinates of the scene in question with the nearest available officers, thereby drastically reducing response times, he said.
The Free WiFi story is not only about the provisioning of the WiFi but it's about what can be done when people now have the access, explains Ramokgopa.
It's about the resolution of existing problems and of that of crime, he said.
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