Creating 10 Real – Time Intelligence Centres – Experiences from the Netherlands Police Force

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“Implementing RTIC’s in all Command and Control Rooms is a big challenge especially during a period of time in which the Dutch police is transforming from ‘old to new’ “Martien Hoogebeen, Project Manager – Control Rooms and Real Time Intelligence Centres Netherlands Police

Martien Hoogebeen will be presenting Creating 10 Real-Time Intelligence Centres – Experiences from the Netherlands Police Force at Control Room Communications 2012. He recently shared some of his experiences with us and gave insight into the challenges he faces, in building 10 RTIC’s – giving you a taste of what to expect at this years conference.

IIR: How do you examine the role and importance of having a real-time intelligence centre (RTIC) to support your control room and field units with information?

MH: The Dutch police are in the process of reforming. 26 independent police forces will transform into 1 national police force with 10 departments. At this moment there are 23 Command and Control Rooms in the Netherlands. As you might know, these Command and Control Rooms are, as we call it co-located: Fire Department, Ambulance and police are united in Command and Control Rooms. Those 23 Command and Control Rooms will, in time, also transform into 1 Command and Control Room organization with 10 facilities. That means an enormous operation for all services involved. To support this operation a new ICT environment is needed.  All Command and Control Room services are in the process of making preparations to buy and implement a brand new Command and Control Room tool. This process is being done with all services together.

For the police the time has come to improve our Command and Control Room performance and make a step toward a Command and Control Room that is not only a dispatch-centre but to one with a big role in directing operations in the field. The need to push real-time intelligence to units in the field is greatly felt. Units in the field are better prepared in combining information from different sources and reaction is quicker and more adequate and we can already see a larger number of arrests. The Dutch police are especially keen on improving the number of ‘red-handed arrests’. We see an important role for RTIC in monitoring social media. In the short history of RTIC we have seen a number of serious incidents (kidnapping, domestic violence, robberies) which were solved in a short amount of time, mainly by the use of intell from social media.

IIR: What are the challenges of building 10 RTIC’s and how can you share the lessons learned?

MH: Implementing RTIC’s in all Command and Control Rooms is a big challenge especially during a period of time in which the Dutch police is transforming from ‘old to new’. That has a lot to do with the transition of power. The 26 chiefs of police of old are still there but not really in charge anymore. The new chief (the only one) has already started his job but is not in charge formally. Regulations concerning personnel is changing but will only be in effect as of next year. So getting new personnel appointed, educated and transferred to their new jobs appeared to be quite difficult. Professional associations (trade unions) were not happy to comply and it took a lot of negotiating to make it happen.

Click here to read the full interview

Martien Hoogebeen Project Manager – Control Rooms and Real Time Intelligence Centres Netherlands Police will be speaking at Control Room Communications at 16:30 Tuesday on 11th December 2012.

For full details of all the learning and networking opportunities available to you at Control Room Communications, download the programme