Belleville Police Services
Cutting-edge tech for departmental accountability
Geotab Success Story
Serving their southeastern Ontario city of just over 50,000, the Belleville (Ontario) Police Service’s team partners with the community to protect the public. The Belleville Police Service has established itself as an international leader in the adoption of policing technology, including telematics. Through its partnership with Mobilizz™, the department has installed Geotab solutions in its 31 vehicles to keep its fleet safe and preserve the public’s trust.
The Challenge:
Gain Public Trust
Modern policing has become more reliant on leveraging data and its benefits are not just confined to the officer’s day-to-day duties. The advent of telematics and real-time tracking has shown how being able to monitor officers is critical for their own safety and their citizens, as well as how enhancing dispatch capabilities results in sending response teams to an incident in minutes. It’s ultimately why the Belleville Police Service knew they needed to take a data-driven approach to maximize departmental efficiency and accountability.
“The reason that we were looking for telematics in our vehicles was we believed that we were missing so many key elements about either the officers’ driving, the officers’ equipment and malfunctions in that vehicle,” says Mike Callaghan, the chief of the Belleville Police Service. “Information such as speed, braking, having a look at how the vehicle was operating, were the emergency lights on, was the siren on? Those are all very, very strong considerations when we’re looking at liability in a collision. So, we felt that having that information was going to be very, very critical to us being able to defend the actions of the officers.”
Loading the department’s 31 vehicles, which include sedans, SUVs and pickups, with telematics technology would deliver this data, but also something equally as important for a modern police force.
“Let’s be very frank, in the world of policing right now, we’ve seen a significant change in the perception and the accountability components within our policing,” says Callaghan. “There’s an old saying that ‘Not only must you appear to be transparent, but you must be transparent.’ And that’s where we believe that we’re headed with the telematics data. The tech journey is one, I think, that every police service should be looking at and moving down towards, because at the end of the day, we have to be accountable.”
Fleet Profile
- Company:Belleville (Ontario) Police Service
- Industry:Government/Police
- Based in:Belleville (Ontario), Canada
- Types of vehicles:Sedans, SUVs and pickups
- Fleet size:31
- Fleet focus:Safety
The Solution:
Providing Transparency
Working with its Geotab reseller, Mobilizz™, the Belleville Police Service installed the Geotab GO9 on all of its vehicles. In addition to GPS, speeding, and seat belt use monitoring, the fleet uses Geotab’s IOX capabilities to monitor the officers’ light and siren use, and whether they’ve removed their C8 rifle from the vehicle.
“The chemistry was there right off the bat,” says Joe Myderwyk, director of Information Technology Services for the Belleville Police Service, speaking about Mobilizz™. “After a few minutes of conversation, it was very clear that they had an understanding of telematics and the role it could play in law enforcement. After we got a demo unit, we spent some time together on the types of reports that were available.”
Telematics has provided the transparency and accountability that was the goal of implementing the Geotab solution. A recent incident clearly demonstrates the extent of this transparency. A resident called to complain about how a police car had roared past their home at an excessive speed without its lights or siren activated. Thanks to the data captured about speed, light and siren use, the department was able to determine the resident was in error. This reporting was a direct result of working with the Mobilizz™ team and the Geotab solution.
The Results
Beyond accountability
While telematics has allowed the Belleville Police Service to be more transparent and better able to respond quickly to calls, there have been a number of other benefits that have saved the city money.
Reduced Paperwork
Health of Vehicles
Improved Safety
From the Customer
“Mobilizz™ clearly demonstrated an understanding of law enforcement and how telematics could play an important part for our service.”
Joe Myderwyk, Director of Information Technology Services, Belleville Police Service
