$.$ A police vehicle command and control system

It is a requirement of a police service that it respond as quickly as possible to

reported incidents and the objective of a command and control system is to

ensure that incidents are logged and routed to the most appropriate police

vehicle. Factors which must be taken into account in deciding which vehicle to

send to which incident include:

$$ The type of incident. Some incidents are more serious than others and

require a more urgent response. It is recommended that classes of

response be identified and incidents allocated to these classes.

$$ The position of available vehicles. In general, the best strategy is to send

the closest vehicle to respond to an incident. Take into account that the

position of vehicles may not be known exactly and it may be necessary to

send a message to vehicles to determine their current position.

$$ The type of vehicles available. Some incidents require a number of

vehicles, others such as traffic accidents, may require specialized vehicles

and so on$.$

$$ The location of the incident. In some areas, it may be unwise simply to

respond to an incident by sending a single vehicle. In other areas, a single

vehicle or policeman may be all that is needed to respond to the same

type of incident.

$$ The need to alert other emergency services such as fire and ambulance

services. The system should automatically alert these services if

necessary.

$$ The system should allow details of the reporter of incidents to be logged.

$$ A system such as this one is open to almost indefinite expansion. For

example, police vehicles may include fax terminals so that written

information may be faxed when a vehicle is routed to an incident. A user

interface for a system control room might be prototyped and so on$.$