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West Midlands is the second largest police force in the country, with more than 8000 officers, almost 4000 support staff, 721 special constables and 956 police community support officers. Calls to the force have more than doubled since 1990, and in the last year it received over 775,000 emergency contacts – which underlined the need for more bandwidth. “Ensuring high speed communications within the force is a must
if West Midlands Police is going to meet its targets for policing the
region,” commented Max Corney, Communications Manager ICT Services
at West Midlands Police. “As the second largest police force in
the UK, our officers are distributed across an area covering over 348
sq miles. Telewest Business was able to put in place the right technology
to give us an advanced network that reached out to all our sites and
that assured our staff fast response to critical networked applications.”
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West
Midlands Police has announced a development to its communication infrastructure
that will allow high speed access to networked applications for officers
and support staff. Using Telewest Business’ Evolved Ethernet,
seventy-two of the force’s sites have been enabled with a 10-fold
increase in bandwidth and operating capability. Along with being future-proof,
the system has the ability to handle converged voice, data and video
traffic.
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The software will power a centralised service hub designed to handle two million calls per year, while a new multi-channel contact centre will support 80% of all public queries from January 1st 2006. The centre will be staffed by 120 employees. “Our new service hub will have a major impact on the way we interact with citizens and employees - although the organisation supporting it will remain essentially unchanged,” said Arjen Hof, Head of the e-government Department in the Municipality of Amsterdam. “As a result, flexibility was absolutely critical to our decision making. Fortunately, KANA was able to meet our requirements head-on. It boasts the functionality we need, will scale well to meet our needs as the new service grows, and fits in very well with our existing systems.” "Providing the public with easy access to the right information
is one of the biggest challenges in e-government," commented Marchai
Bruchey, SVP of Marketing and Alliances at KANA. “The City of
Amsterdam is setting new standards in local democracy, and we’re
delighted to be taking such an important role in its strategy.” |
The
City of Amsterdam has announced that it is to use a new SRM (service
resolution management) solution to improve its e-government provision
and communications handling. Employing KANA’s full SRM suite,
Amsterdam will be able to offer citizens and employees better access
to its services and operations.
“A European Institute of Technology could play an innovative role in supporting knowledge transfer, attracting the best researchers and companies from around the world to work in partnership,” said Ján Figel’, European Commissioner in charge of Education, Training, Culture & Multilingualism. The public consultation will run until mid-November, and coincide with a wider analysis by the Commission. Issues such as the EIT’s objectives and structure will be assessed at the earliest stage. “Together we need to strengthen Europe’s potential in
research and technology, by stimulating research careers, by encouraging
European researchers to stay in Europe and by attracting the best brains
from around the world to Europe,” added EU President Barroso. |
The European Commission has launched a public consultation on the possible
creation of a dedicated new centre for research and education in the
field of technology, in a bid to assess its feasibility and value. The
‘European Institute of Technology’ (EIT) was originally
outlined in the Commission’s mid-term review of the Lisbon Process
in February, as a route to transforming success in research and education
into competitive advantage for European businesses.|
The SRIF was introduced to improve the UK’s science and engineering base by developing facilities at universities. “The Government is committed to ensuring the UK enhances its reputation as a centre of excellence for world-class science, research and innovation,” said Science and Innovation Minister, Lord Sainsbury. “Developing infrastructure like this enables leading researchers
and scientists to have access to some of the most modern facilities
in the world and will help the UK realise its potential for increased
productivity,” he added. |
A
new state-of-the-art science facility has opened two months ahead of
schedule, following a funding boost by the Government. The Darwin Building,
at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), was backed by the Government’s
Science Research Investment Fund (SRIF) and brings the investment into
North West-based developments to £145m through the programme.
The facility will house the University’s Departments of Biological
Sciences and Psychology.
Alcatel has announced a new €120m contract to provide a high-speed telecommunications network for England’s motorway system. The project will be managed by GeneSYS, the consortium selected to deploy the National Roads Telecommunications Services (NRTS) on behalf of the Highways Agency. Currently, the Highways Agency’s system consists of twenty-eight separate networks, with more than 11,000 roadside devices. Alcatel’s solution will involve a single, IP-based network that will improve transmission of various modes of information, including CCTV and electronic signaling, along with creating a more efficient emergency telephone facility. The new system will aim to contribute towards safer roads, reliable journeys and better informed drivers. "Alcatel has a strong track record of implementing complex projects that harness powerful state of the art ICT solutions for the 21st century needs of the transportation sector," stated Jacques Dunogue, Executive Vice President for Alcatel. "We are proud to contribute to this smart road project, which will transform England's highway system into one of the most advanced in Europe." Implementation of the new network will begin in 2006 and completion
of the core transmission network is scheduled for the first quarter
of 2007.
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