Last update:

03-feb-2005

Isolated workers and persons under threat of violence

It is a new trend that responsible private and public sector organisations want to secure workers in risky and unguarded environments. For isolated workers and persons under threat of violence, safety is a constant worry, but now the risk can be and is being mitigated through effective use of GPS and GSM technologies.

Some examples:

Isolated Workers 

In Finland, Stora Enson employs forest workers, who often work alone and at all hours, even weekends. Stora Enson's concern about safety has led them to implement a similar system. When the worker gets to work, he sends a login message, which includes position, status and time, to the control room where a tracking application is active. At the control room, the position of the worker is displayed on a map on the screen of a PC. In case of emergency, the forest worker presses the emergency button. This action sends an emergency message with an update of his position to the control room and at the same time a hands free phone communication is opened. This solution is a very cost effective way to improve the workers' safety at all times and to ensure that help gets on its way quickly in case of problems. Furthermore supervisors are no longer required to work on weekends which leads to an additional cost savings.

Women Under The Threat Of Violence 

The Danish Ministry of Justice has launched a new service starting 2003 whereby the Danish police provides Benefon Track phones to women who are living under threat of violence. The idea is that when facing danger, the women presses the BeneGuard button on the Benefon Track telephone. Through this action a number of things happen: the precise location using GPS information is sent immediately to an emergency control centre. The emergency control centre can locate the sender accurately and then call for immediate assistance to the person in danger.

Taxi Drivers

 Taxi driving involves working at night and driving in unsafe neighbourhoods while either picking up or dropping off customers. Taxi drivers often face violent and aggressive customers and have to live in constant fear of being assaulted. In Salo, Finland, local taxi drivers felt they needed a solution for emergency and dangerous situations, and a backup just in case. The solution had to easy to use, preventive and cost efficient. They chose the Benefon Track to be used as an emergency as well as a communication device in the taxis. The back-end solution in the Taxi centre is a Benefon Esc! used solely for receiving alarms from the Taxi drivers. In case of an emergency or when threatened, the driver presses the emergency BeneGuard button on the Benefon Track. The device sends an emergency message with the exact location, speed and direction to the Taxi centre, as well as opening a one-way communication line. The centre can listen in to what is happening in the taxi and take appropriate actions, e.g. alert the police. For the taxi drivers, this has turned out to be cost efficient solution for handling emergency situations. If they have a problem, they simply press the emergency button, and they know that help is on the way. The driver is no longer completely on his own, as he knows he call quickly somebody in case he needs help.

Home Nurses

While answering a patient's call, home nurses and doctors can find themselves in inhospitable neighbourhoods sometimes late in the evening or even in the middle of the night. Concerned about their safety they often organize dispatch centres that offer a central communication point of contact which they call to communicate their position and current action plan: "I have arrived at the patient's door", "the visit is over", "I'm driving to next patient", "I'm now heading home" … In a medium size city, a home nursing organization whose employees were under stress from being attacked, has opted to look for a light solution to reassure the visiting nurses. The Benefon Track was successfully tested as a cost effective solution for structured communication and as en emergency device always near at hand. The nurse needs only to press the BeneGuard button and chose the pre-programmed structured message appropriate to the phase of his/her work, and an SMS is then automatically sent to the control centre. The control centre knows where the nurse is and has a record of when and where the message was sent. Messaging also leads to significant savings in both time and cost rather than using the standard more expensive mode of voice communication. Furthermore, in case of emergency or threatening situation, the nurse only needs to press the same button for five seconds, the emergency centre is alerted and can hear what is happening and alert the local police. Help can therefore be brought in to the right location by pressing just one button.

For a scalable solution for personal safety, please refer also to the Benefon Life Line solution.