The Role of Mapping Technology in Public Safety
The impact of evolving mapping technology is increasingly visible on the scale of individual decisions about where to go and how to get there. Users tag social media posts with geospatial data, and people rely on GPS navigation with traffic reports and accurate travel time estimates every day. Applications for mapping technology, however, extend far beyond that into a critical sector that is less visible to the average person yet nonetheless impacts everyday reality: public safety.
Public safety officials increasingly rely on mapping technologies to organize timely and efficient emergency responses. Mapping technology has been crucial in local and global disease mitigation efforts throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In the criminal justice sector, crime mapping creates actionable intelligence that influences decisions about law enforcement deployment with the goal of keeping communities safe. With advanced methods of data acquisition and new, previously unavailable types of data, mapping technology continues to save lives and prevent crime.
How Mapping Technology Is Being Used in Public Safety
The rise in complexity and availability of mapping methodologies contribute to the positive impact of mapping technology on public safety. Mapping technology has become essential to law enforcement through technology such as crime mapping and crime analysis, which enables predictive policing. Advances in accuracy and availability of geospatial data help public safety officials decide how and where to address crime patterns as well as other kinds of public safety risks.
These advances are felt even on the scale of everyday interactions when individuals rely on mapping technology to make the best decisions about where to go and how to get there. These seemingly minor conveniences afforded by mapping technology benefit public safety at the same time by helping motorists avoid traffic and construction, which could prevent accidents.
How Mapping Technology Works
Mapping technology relies on geospatial data, and the types of geospatial data and methods of data acquisition are vast. Data for outdoor spaces can be acquired through GPS satellites. Satellite imaging and mobile connected imaging cameras mounted on cars and other vehicles can help with 3D mapping of outdoor spaces. GPS coordinates are often used in conjunction with geospatial information systems (GIS), which allow users to add locations of events to the map.
Law enforcement officers use GIS to track crime. Public safety officials also use it to track disease spread. Satellites also have the capability to obtain multispectral data, including climate data and weather patterns overlaid with geographic data. Radar can also be used to compile 3D maps of regions that include elevation and object locations.
More recently, 3D data is being used to create “Digital Twins” of entire cities. These 3D representations typically incorporate real-time and historical data from sensors and other sources across the city. This can be used to improve public safety planning using simulations and other drills or exercises of hypothetical scenarios.
Indoor mapping technology has widely expanded; now data acquisition includes radio waves and acoustic signals available in mobile devices, which reveal room layouts and the location of any obstacles. Mapping technology increasingly relies on crowdsourcing made possible by mobile technology. This involves users reporting crowds, traffic, and even uploading images of indoor spaces, all of which are tagged with geospatial data and translate directly to other users’ experiences. The collected data can then be compiled into many user-friendly formats, including 3D maps of indoor spaces or even live crowd maps.
The Role of Mapping Technology in Public Safety
All of this geospatial data has the ability to influence major public safety decisions. Weather mapping and predictive models can dictate emergency response in the event of storms and natural disasters. Emergency management teams can also use mapping technology to devise evacuation routes and make decisions about where to deploy emergency communications and send assistance.
Indoor mapping can also help quicken emergency response times by aiding emergency responders, especially when situational awareness alone is insufficient for finding the closest exit, as in a fire. Mapping technology’s critical role in protecting public safety stresses the need for accurate maps. Fulfilling this need becomes more attainable as mapping technology continues to improve and new kinds of mapping technology become widely available.
Public Safety Applications of Mapping Technology
Mapping technology enables law enforcement to turn crime data into crime mapping systems, which can translate to a more effective and efficient approach to police emergency response. Crime mapping uses geospatial data paired with crime patterns to develop predictive policing. Predictive policing enables informed decisions about where and when police are most needed, benefiting law enforcement agencies and communities.
To fulfill smaller-scale goals, 3D maps of indoor spaces can be especially useful to public safety officials. These can be used by firemen or police in emergency situations to identify where people could be trapped and how to best get them to safety.
Impact of Mapping Technology in Public Safety
Mapping technology not only influences how decisions are made for public safety but also the evaluation of how well policies and programs increase public safety once implemented. Mapping technology responds and adjusts to the input of geospatial data. Similarly, the world of public safety policy and urban development can also respond and adapt to the information supplied by mapping technology.
How Mapping Technology Has Changed Public Safety
Mapping technology has led to more effective deployment of police forces, a greater understanding of crime patterns, better predictive models, and more efficient uses of public safety resources in general. A survey of research published in IEEEXplore discusses how crime mapping can not only influence law enforcement decisions but also those of the general public. Crowdsourced crime mapping makes the insights of crime analysts available to anyone via mobile apps. These apps allow people to view crime hotspots and crime trends in a given area, and in response, they can take steps to ensure their own safety.
Specifically in relation to the pandemic, resources based on online mapping technology have put influential tools of public safety in the hands of anyone with an internet connection. One such resource, HealthMap, compiles outbreak data from news sources, the World Health Organization, social media, and user-reported cases. The end result is an interactive map showing the size and severity of outbreaks that even offers an “outbreaks near me” notification feature. Various resources like this have helped people stay informed and stay vigilant in stopping the spread of COVID-19.
Effectiveness of Mapping Technology on Public Safety
Mapping technology can ensure that effective measures are taken to reduce crime and to provide faster emergency response. Mapping technology has the ability to incorporate various factors beyond time and place, including socioeconomic factors like mean income and literacy rates, to help determine risk factors for developing crime hotspots. Tracking crime patterns in these areas before and after policy implementation, for example, helps public safety authorities decide whether to expand preventative measures. The same process could be used by community leaders to determine the effectiveness or impact of outreach programs and other resources.
Similar approaches utilizing mapping technology help organize the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Tracing instances of serious illness has helped public safety officials identify areas where the impact of the pandemic has been most devastating and where to dedicate resources. Continuous evaluation and integration of new data about the effectiveness of policies earlier in the pandemic informed targeted rollout of regulations and policies in the later stages. Mapping technology helps decide when and where these implementations would be most effective.
Emerging Mapping Technologies in Public Safety
A changing world demands more advanced mapping technologies. Mapping technology increasingly integrates artificial intelligence to derive insights from larger and more complex data inputs.
Factors Driving Trends in Mapping Technology
Growing urban populations, the advancement and widespread availability of powerful technology, and increased attention on crime safety continue to drive development of mapping technology to best use data to improve public safety.
Mapping technology most recently influenced public safety communications and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy decisions surrounding the pandemic needed to respond to transmission data and rates of serious illness quickly and efficiently, and mapping technology is a major factor in this process. According to an article in the International Journal of Health Geographics, mapping of disease cases, population travel data, social media reactions, and super-spreading trajectories has proven crucial to the global and local public safety response to the pandemic.
Newest Advancements in Mapping Technologies for Public Safety
As city populations continue to rise across the globe, crime mapping and crime prevention are now being implemented in the design of cities themselves. Emerging technologies use highly specific crime analysis methods that trace crime occurrence alongside architectural and urban planning features to reduce these risk factors in city designs. The placement of features like alleys, open spaces, and highway overpasses actually impact crime patterns, according to the National Institute of Justice. The ability to analyze more data to draw more comprehensive conclusions facilitates the integration of crime analysis outcomes into urban planning.
How Location Data Has Improved Mapping Technology
Mobile phones have spurred a new era of mapping technology, making more data available than ever before. These devices inform crowd control, traffic regulation, and accident risk by providing data about where and how people are moving. The 3D mapping of indoor spaces made possible by crowdsourcing and compiling images is one of the newest advancements in the field.
This data provides public safety authorities with risk factors of indoor spaces and enable future designs of critical public spaces like train stations, parking garages, and concert venues. This data is augmented by reported accidents and other risks like indoor crime like robberies, pickpocketing, and assaults. This combined data determines the placement of exits and emergency equipment like fire extinguishers and mitigate risk factors like blind corners in foot traffic flow. These insights are critical for emergency evacuation protocols.
Future of Mapping Technology in Public Safety
With the current pace of improvements, mapping technology faces an exciting future. As public safety implications are explored, the role of mapping technology in public safety will only expand.
The Challenges of Implementing Mapping Technology in Public Safety
Advanced technologies exist for the acquisition of data, but challenges exist in integrating all of it into mapping technology and ensuring its accuracy. Crowdsourced information particularly is challenging to confirm, but as mobile technologies improve, the reliability and accuracy of data harvested from mobile devices continues to advance. Software improvements, which are occurring rapidly, will allow for more sophisticated models and more accurate and nuanced predictions about public safety.
The Problems Mapping Technology Is Meant to Address
Crime mapping has the potential to influence how law enforcement operates with these improvements in analytic software and mapping technology. The integration of more data into crime mapping could encourage a more holistic approach to community policing and crime prevention policy. Evaluation of socioeconomic risk factors and their effect on crime rates is already starting to inform policies that address disparities that often lead to crime as well as crime itself.
During the pandemic, mapping technology proved critical to the response and prevention effort. Mapping technology will continue to be used to address public health issues in the future as it has in the past. These concerns could include tracking contamination of water or food sources and localizing defects in products or food products to organize recalls.
How Mapping Technology Is Changing Public Safety Processes
Mapping technology is increasingly placing public safety in the public’s hands. Mobile apps and online resources bring this information and its valuable insights outside of public safety officials’ offices. The advances in technology not only provide critical information to big national-level decision-makers but also to ordinary decision-making individuals.
Mapping technology offers the opportunity to integrate crime data, weather patterns, and risk factors in indoor and outdoor spaces to improve public safety through data-driven policy and design. As the technology advances, these applications can reach farther and synthesize more factors to expand the role of mapping technology in public safety and building a better, safer world.
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