Two police forces in southern England have run a trial of using drones as a first responder.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary and Thames Valley Police have reported positive results from the exercise carried out at the recent Isle of Wight Festival.
The trial was run under the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) pathways programme, under which drones feed back real time information to police control rooms and operational units.
It simulated a ‘drone as first responder’ (DFR) capability with the drone being flown from an IDI automated deployment system stationed at a temporary heliport set up for the festival.
Checking road closures
The DFR was deployed in response to a request to check that road closures were correctly in place, with the aim of freeing up officers on the ground.
Chris Stagg, a member of the two police forces’ joint operations unit and lead for the BVLOS programme, said: “This was the first time we’ve been able to put the DFR technology to use in a live environment, and it gave us a great insight into just how effective it could be as part of a routine policing response in the new future, helping keep people safe and providing a dynamic and responsive view of the situation on the ground.”
