Contact Dennis Steele, professor of computer science at Regis University at 303-458-4120.
Computer scientists at Regis University in Denver are working with the Denver Police Department to make the stressful art of police dispatching into a more exact--and a cheaper-- science.
An urban police dispatcher has to be a little bit air traffic controller, a little bit emergency room doctor, and a life and death juggler with nerves of steel. How do you get the most cops to the worst crimes fastest?
Dennis Steele, professor of computer science, says the current best dispatching solution costs too much: "The AVL [Automatic Vehicle Location] system uses satellite technology to pinpoint each car's position." But that hardware is very expensive, and Denver police don't have it. "So we're going to solve the problem with software," says Steele.
Steele enlisted twelve Regis computer science honors students, who will begin by spending some time in the back seats of Denver patrol cars. "They'll be shoulder-to-shoulder with the cops in the street," Steele says, "and once they understand the problem of getting the police to the scene of the crime, they'll work on the software to solve it." (The students will not leave the cars.)
The software will approximate a solution to the "travelling salesman problem," a mathematical chestnut that involves getting a salesman to the greatest number of cities in the least amount of time. Anybody who ever planned a business trip knows how difficult that can be; and Steele notes that mathematicians have proven it's impossible to find an optimal solution for every case. "But with the massive calculating power of computers," he says, "we can approximate the best route for every patrol car to take in every situation."
By travelling with the police in Denver's 6th District, the students will be creating an expert system that incorporates the knowledge of the "cop on the beat:" where the trouble spots are, what times are particularly dangerous, and what short cuts work, for example.
This database of expert knowledge, combined with the approximate solution of the "travelling policeman problem," should enable a dispatcher to provide the fastest response to evry 911 call, without the expensive satellite hardware. "Of course the police on the scene will be able to over-ride the computer," reassures Steele. "We see this as a valuable public service project."
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