Twice named “The Best Place to Live in the Metro-Atlanta area” by Atlanta Magazine, and ranked #19 for the “Best Eastern U.S. City to Live” by Money Magazine, the 88,346 citizens of the City of Roswell enjoy a beautiful community filled with parks, cultural arts activities, thriving business, and a strong tie to the Chattahoochee River. The City of Roswell’s vision statement reads “to be the premier riverside community connecting strong neighborhoods and the entrepreneurial spirit,” and they are well on their way to making that vision a reality.
But the City’s accomplishments don’t stop there. In terms of public safety, the City is also ranked the #18 Safest City in the United States by City Crime Rankings. With a statistically low crime rate, there is no doubt that the Roswell Police Department has been working hard to keep the City’s residents safe. However, when Geographic Technologies Group (GTG) completed an enterprise GIS Strategic Implementation Plan for the City, a GIS departmental needs assessment for the Police Department revealed that the current software used by police staff could be improved. Thus, GTG went to work to provide a software solution to further evolve the award-winning Police Department, and Roswell became the first city to implement GTG’s newest public safety software initiative: SafeCityGIS. Curtis Hinton, President of GTG, stated, “All too often public safety agencies adopt GIS tools that are insufficient. This results in underuse and disappointing results. Our public safety team has created SafeCityGIS to enable public safety agencies with an integrated suite that serves the entire public safety organization. As a leading Esri business partner, we have leveraged the best of the Esri toolset with the idea that the software has to be intuitive and easy-to-use.”
“Our data is now visible for the officers and Command Staff in any scenario that they may encounter whether it’s proactive policing or officer safety when approaching a residence,” Kelly Hooper, Criminal Intelligence Analyst for Roswell Police Department stated.
One of these improvements included a crime analysis software, to replace older software that was non-functional. So when GTG implemented the new SafeCityGIS, the City was armed with the best crime analysis software available. The SafeCityGIS initiative includes Vantage Points Public Safety Analyst (PSA), Vantage Points Mobile Viewer, and Vantage Points Dashboard, delivering the most cutting edge software for public safety. With the Vantage Points PSA, the department can now see an analysis of crime data such as incident mapping, pattern sequencing, and mapped probability of a new crime occurrence. This analytical tool delivers more reliable data, while providing insight into any criminal trends, helping the department better pin-point areas of need. The Mobile Viewer software gives in-field staff access to up-to-the minute incident data by geographic location. Officers can now readily view any area of concern and discern patterns. SafeCityGIS Dashboard has been implemented for Command Staff. The dashboard gives them a statistical view of all critical data using a variety of widgets all tied to an integrated map. “Our data is now visible for the officers and Command Staff in any scenario that they may encounter whether it’s proactive policing or officer safety when approaching a residence,” Kelly Hooper, Criminal Intelligence Analyst for Roswell Police Department stated.
James Kelt, Public Safety Manager for GTG, points out, “I have been working with public safety agencies for over a decade. There has always been a struggle to implement easy-to-use GIS tools for all levels of staff. SafeCityGIS harnesses the best GIS has to offer via an intuitive and very usable platform.”
