The SITA Business Intelligence (BI) team took the business opportunity to develop a total intelligence system to support the South African Police Service (SAPS) in crime information gathering and analysis thereof. This meant that hundreds of databases from sources around the country had to be consolidated. Mr Sarel Naud'e, Manager SAPS BI, said that in future this GIS could also benefit other organs of State and not just the SAPS.
The SAPS GIS displays crime information on maps, with the exact location of the crime being pinpointed to a street name and number. In future details of the outlines of buildings and later even floor plans of strategic areas will also be captured.
On 31 January 2001 the SITA project team launched the implementation phase of the pilot project at five identified police stations (Sandton, Braamfontein, Johannesburg Central, Hillbrow and Randburg) within the Johannesburg area. This phase's chief deliverable is to get user specifications, and if successful it will be implemented across the country.
All 1106 Police station boundaries were revised, digitised and incorporated into a corporate GIS data set to assist the police in knowing exactly which police station or sub-stations is responsible for which area.
The project team also decided to broaden their services to SAPS in order to support the mission and vision of the SAPS - To Fight Crime. The project purchased two top-of-the-range HP Designjet 5000 AO colour printers to print maps. "It is the first time that each police station will have an updated map of their immediate policing areas". Mr Naud'e also said that there are cost savings involved with regard to printing and laminating the maps internally and that the entire facility compares with the best printing shops in the industry. "The estimated savings are in the region of R800 000", he said.
Since the installation of the printing and laminating facility on 19 March 2001 the project team managed to supply maps to the 340 priority police stations, amounting to approximately 1 500 maps. In the region of 2 square kilometres of printing was done, with 3 litres of dye ink being used. Maps for the remaining 766 police stations (( 2 500 maps) are envisaged for 15 May 2001. SAPS also indicated that further maps might be required for all areas, including its Head Office.
Share