Mission Critical Police Control Room

Systematic supports and maintains the control room of the Police of Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital city of Denmark, with over half a million inhabitants. The police here are required to make a special effort to maintain law and order.

The control centre for all this – known in Danish as Vagtcentralen – is located at the police headquarters building in the heart of Copenhagen. Here specially trained police officers work to deal with citizens’ emergency calls.

The Vagtcentralen control centre covers the Copenhagen, Frederiksberg and Amager areas, and it is from here that coordination of officers from the police stations at Bellahøj, Amager and City is dealt with.

All calls to the police pass through this control centre, which receives up to 400 emergency calls every day from both the general public and organisational partners. The control centre also has to deal with about 600 non-emergency calls on a daily basis.

The unique system that Vagtcentralen uses – known as HS2 – is important for the Copenhagen police being able to respond quickly to calls. The electronic form system makes communication easy and direct. The caller only has contact with one person, but all the people involved (from the telephone operators to the officers on duty) have access to the information available with regard to the particular incident – and this continues while the case is being dealt with. Despite its complexity, the system is logically structured and easy to use, and thus quickly and easily understood.

Twice as many simultaneous major events

One of the great advantages of the system is that it allows all users (duty officer, telephone operator, radio operator, the KSN command station, Service Centre, police stations, etc.) to access multiple cases simultaneously, providing a unique opportunity to prioritise and exploit time and manpower effectively. It also ensures that all data is immediately registered within the system. Everything is keyed in directly, and is immediately after shared with all designated users.

According to Morten Steen Rasmussen, a consultant at the Vagtcentralen control centre, “Using this system, we can handle more than twice as many simultaneous major events as other control centres.”

Systematic as a service provider

Systematic has supplied development and support for the Vagtcentralen HS2 system for the last five years. In collaboration with the customer, Systematic has carried out assignments that include developing the system to provide statistics and documentation to senior police management, developing integration with the Danish national identity number system, and a range of individual applications and customisations, both large and small.

Confidence is crucial

It is important that Danish citizens can feel confident that the police will arrive quickly and that they are able to help. That part of Danish law enforcement services must be supported by the appropriate systems – 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This in turn makes it important that Systematic can provide development and support that fits into the requirements and expectations addressed to the Danish police. This means that adjustments often have to be made within the live operating environment, but there mustn’t be any interruption to police operations and that the solutions developed must be simple to use and easy to put into operation.

"Because the consultants are located here with us, and because the consultants do not change all the time, the work can be ongoing. The staff at the control centre help with operational know-how, and Systematic contributes with technical skills so that we work together to establish the solution that supports our operational requirements most efficiently,” explains Morten Steen Rasmussen.

“We would rather simplify applications than complicate them. The user interface for the system must be simple and straightforward – without menus and other distractions. It’s in the very nature of Vagtcentralen operations that things have to go quickly and provide a clear overview, and the Systematic people understand that. It can also be seen in the recent addition of integration with the Danish national identity number system, developed in collaboration with Systematic, and which we are very pleased with,” adds Morten Steen Rasmussen.

The future

Both the Copenhagen Police control centre and Systematic consultants see good future opportunities in the HS2 system. Both parties emphasise that there is potential for developing these systems to make it possible to share information with other police authorities and jurisdictions.