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September 23, 2013

Public Safety is the 'Killer App' for LBS

After years in which the wireless industry waited for consumer location-based services to truly take off in a meaningful way, the reality seems to be catching up with the rhetoric. Market research firm Berg Insights predicts that the number of active users of location-based services (LBS) and apps grew 80 percent in 2012. In North America, an estimated 50 percent of all handset users now access location-based services regularly.

However, the significant growth in usage and number of active LBS users has not yet resulted in substantial growth in revenues, especially for high accuracy location enabled applications. Total LBS service revenues in North America reached $835 million in 2012. These are healthy numbers but nowhere near what was predicted a few years back, when ABI Research predicted LBS revenue to have reached $13.3 billion worldwide by now. The reasons are numerous and vary widely depending on who is explaining the shortfall, however most arguments boil down to the fact that no ‘killer app’ has yet emerged for location, in the way email propelled the Internet in the 1990s. However, I disagree and claim that public safety is the killer app for location and it’s already here.

Public safety is a broad term, and in this context I mean it to include the use of location for emergency response, protection of people and important assets, and security. The public safety uses of LBS include locating and tracking emergency callers (via E911), locating and tracking public safety officers (called ‘blue force tracking’), and the monitoring of endangered areas via virtual geo-fence. These uses are in various stages of acceptance by governments, with some exciting developments happening.

Next-generation 911 is here

High-accuracy indoor location has been trialed by the FCC’s CSRIC and is widely considered to be the answer to stricter FCC mandates around E911 that have already started to take effect. High-accuracy location could be better integrated to provide detailed intelligence for both first responders and emergency callers. For example, when texting 911, similar emergency calls in a given radius could be identified to alert authorities to larger emergencies, such as a terrorist attack or natural disaster. Transmitting a geo-tagged photo could help emergency responders locate someone in a crowded sports stadium or shopping mall. And indoor location, which the RF Pattern Matching geo-location method uniquely enables as a software-only solution, is vital in the example of a mass shooting, such as at the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., in July 2012, where victims were huddled under seats in the depths of the building, away from GPS signals. With over 6100 public safety answering points (PSAPs) throughout the US looking to upgrade their ability to more quickly locate and respond to emergency callers in the next few years, public safety location solutions will be in high demand.

Blue force tracking increases field officer safety

Police and other front-line public safety agencies that have been hard hit by budget cuts are looking to improve their results with fewer resources. Some have begun to trial location solutions that enable field officers to be tracked while on duty, increasing their situational awareness and enabling administrators to more efficiently allocate officers to problem areas. Blue force tracking allows law enforcement personnel to be tracked using their mobile devices, independent of mobile device type, after first “opting-in” to overcome any privacy-related objections. Blue force tracking offers public safety organizations many benefits:

  • Increases field officer safety
    • Locate and track officers as they leave patrol vehicles, preventing ambushes
    • Locate closest backup to respond to officers in need
  • Bolster law enforcement intelligence-gathering capabilities
    • Obtain location data to build prosecution case
    • Prove where officers were at the time of an incident, helping re-create crime scenarios
  • Increases efficiency by enabling law enforcement to do more with fewer resources
    • Improve allocation of resources
    • Reduce bottom line in an era of declining budgets and fewer officers

Blue force tracking has been trialed by various public safety departments in the U.S., and interest in this application is growing rapidly.

Geo-fence monitors a wide area

The most important role of public safety organizations is to save lives, and LBS provide a vital tool in these efforts. Imagine the scenario of a large storm, such as last year’s Hurricane Sandy, which forecasters know with some certainty where and when it would hit. Public safety officials could create a geo-fence, a virtual border around a user-defined geographical area, such as lower Manhattan or the New Jersey shoreline, to define the impact area. Once that was done, authorities could identify all mobile devices within the geo-fence and send an e-mail, text, or voice alert warning of the storm impact and providing safety instructions. This snapshot would also be useful later as a record of all subscribers who were in the area prior to impact. This information could be used to account for survivors and identify missing persons, and to better focus emergency responses to areas with the most potential casualties.

These are just a few of the examples in which high-accuracy location based services provide an instrumental benefit to public safety efforts to save lives and protect property. By focusing on the needs of this important constituency and designing LBS applications that meet their needs, the location industry will fulfill its potential while at the same time helping make our world safer.


Manlio Allegra is the co-founder, president, CEO and chairman of the board for Polaris Wireless.

Edited by Alisen Downey


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