Kia Australia and Fujitsu have revealed the latest technology developments in their police vehicle collaboration project to revolutionise the way state police forces do their job.
But Fujitsu says it has been trying to offer more ergonomic hardware and software to various emergency services and particularly police patrol vehicles stretching back 10 years.
The new project involves a prototype Stinger highway patrol vehicle without the significant weight increase typically seen in current-issue duty vehicles.
Putting fleets of these Stingers into service would mean a far less costly workhorse fit-out operation for state and territory police departments.
Fujitsu and Kia Australia say their vehicles’ new systems could start rolling out in the next six to eight months.
A range of redesigned features include the operation of equipment such as lights, sirens, computer database access, search lights, radio communications, license plate recognition and surveillance cameras, through integration with Kia’s vehicle systems.
Kia Australia has given Fujitsu engineers open access to its Stinger performance sedan to develop a plug-and-play system which would remove as much as 60kg of excess weight from the existing police pursuit vehicle fit-out package.
Fujitsu says the project is about reducing weight, simplifying the fit-out of police vehicles, while integrating siloed technology systems such as databases, criminal computer databases and the live feed of office-mounted body cameras.
“We’re talking about one of the most unsafe vehicles on the road – a current, in-service, fully equipped police car,” Fujitsu principal architect Ian Hamer says.
“When an officer slams the gear selector into drive in a pursuit, their hand is hitting an object in the cabin,” he explains.
At present, police officers are required to use up to seven computer or program logins while being surrounded in their patrol vehicles by a range of dangerous brackets, holding up to four hard-edge computers, radio devices and scanners which pose a danger to officers in the event of a collision.
“Officers have been complaining for a long time about safety concerns inside their patrol vehicles, even down to knees rubbing on things,” he says.
“On hot days, air-conditioner vents are blocked by multiple pieces of equipment which means even basic creature comforts are rendered useless,” he says.
“This poses a fatigue issue, all the additional hardware poses a huge safety risk in the event of a crash, and there’s so much added weight to the standard vehicles their performance and handling characteristics are compromised from the beginning,” Hamer explains.
“Everything installed by suppliers into a vehicle has an ADR compliance issue, from potentially interrupting airbag deployment zones to compromised crash protection, even officers who keep grazing their knuckles on the underside of computers bolted in front of them,” he says.
Fujitsu says it spent years pushing major automotive manufacturers to let it redesign the innards of police cars.
“We spent about 10 years lobbying Holden, Ford and all the other manufacturers to let us in there to make them safer, smarter, remove a lot of the excess that gets put in these vehicles,” Hamer reveals.
“But the car industry has always had the same response; that’s not what they do, not interested, no thank you,” he says.
Hamer says they tried “everyone” to ask for access to OEMs’ vehicles to help them develop better ideas for rigging up police fleet vehicles.
“We eventually gave Kia our story, told them what we wanted to achieve, and having tried literally everyone, figured it would probably be a similar response,” he concedes.
“But an hour later we had a call asking what colour Stinger we wanted – they wasted no time,” Hamer beams.
“It’s not as simple as just looking at plans, you need to get into the vehicle’s systems, how they work on the road, you need a working vehicle to understand it properly, and Kia has given us access to their technical teams,” Hamer acknowledges.
“We spent five days gutting the whole vehicle, looked at where we would plug into, figuring out how to maintain the vehicle without drilling everything in place with tech-screws like in the old days,” he chuckles.
Another major feature of the project includes a biometric scanner which detects and reads the presence of a flowing vein in the officer’s hand.
This scanner cannot grant vehicle access to anybody other than the assigned officer and does not work without a pulsing vein detected.
It would tailor seating position, mirror adjustment
The signature piece of new equipment would be a fully integrated roof-mounted LED lightbar with CCTV plugged into an integrated power source in the rear of the vehicle, replacing the current fit-out which requires drilling holes into the roof of in-service patrol cars.
Fujitsu says it expects the current six-week fit-out period to be down to just two, which will save police departments costly downtime, reduce insurance costs and improve residual value.
Hamer says the current technological and economical ecosystem for fitting out a typical police vehicle uses 10-15 suppliers, puts officers in harm’s way and is a very expensive operation to equip thousands of law enforcement assets.
“We’re removing more equipment and weight than we’re adding,” he adds.
Fujitsu’s collaboration with Kia means officers will be able to work in a customised policing vehicle, rather than an ad-hoc device.
“Many police vehicles also have to carry weapons, class one drugs for emergencies, roadside breath test equipment, crash scene equipment, and can cost up to $80,000 to fit-out a typical highway patrol car,” he reveals.
He says the current technological systems are cumbersome and don’t work together.
“Every time an officer turns off their patrol vehicle, be it for lunch or to get fuel, they have to log back into their computers, which is time consuming,” he says.
“Every digital system currently doesn’t talk to each other, from video to criminal databases,” Hamer continues.
“One bracket to hold an officer’s computer can cost $300 – our system completely removes the need for it altogether,” he says.
The new technologies will mean officers can focus on their jobs, without having to be held up by unnecessary administration tasks.
“There are officers having to one-finger type to log into all their systems individually; we decided to design one system, with one power source, taking up less space, reduce damage to the leased vehicle and allow it to perform better while being inherently safer at the same time,” Hamer explains further.
“Police cars are basically CCTV systems for evidence gathering, and this allows police to do their jobs better, safer and more efficiently,” he adds.
Hamer says any fleet with a back-to-base operation can potentially benefit from what they’ve developed.
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