1. Addressing the Problems of
Addressing
at
British Transport Police
Richard R. Smith,
Force Information Manager, British Transport Police
Bob Chell,
Principal Consultant, 1Spatial Group Ltd

2. • National Uniformed Police Force formed in
1826 (3yrs before the Metropolitan Police
Service)
• 10,000 miles of track
• 3,000 railway stations and depots
– National Rail network across England,
Scotland and Wales
• London Underground system
• Docklands Light Railway
• Glasgow Subway
• Midland Metro tram system
• Croydon Tramlink
• International services operated by Eurostar
Who are BTP?

3. Who are BTP?
- Police the journeys of six
million passengers
- 400,000 tonnes of freight
- Over 10,000 miles of track
We believe traveling is about
more than just getting there.
It’s about ensuring safety and
security all the way.

4. UK Location Strategy
Place Matters. Everything happens somewhere. If we
can get a better understanding on this we can make
better use of resources, improve planning and advance
our management of risk.
There is too much data duplication, too little reuse, too
few linkages across datasets to support policy
implementation.
This is particularly true for the emergency services,
where inaccurate data can result in lives being put at
risk.

5. Command and Control

9. Non-Suspicious Death

14. The Problems of Addressing
A root cause of these inaccuracies is the multiple
sources of event data and often conflicting address
databases in use, such as NLPG, AL2 and PAF.
There is an initiative (NESG) to produce a reliable,
common address gazetteer for the emergency services,
which will overcome many of these problems.
However, there is an immediate need for individual
forces to maintain their own address database or
gazetteer now. This is for both incident response and to
provide accurate mapping in support of intelligence
generation, resource planning and many other activities.

15. Addressing the Problem
British Transport Police (BTP) has recently
embarked on a programme to automate the audit and
repair of their incident database in relation to the NLPG
and other address files.
BTP have been able quantify the quality of data held
within their Gazetteer, which is core to providing location
information to any Officer responding to an Incident on
the Railway.
After the audit, the same technology will be used to
provide ongoing validation and ensure data integrity and
reliability.

16. The Impact on the Business
“Right Information, Right Place, Right Time”
• Assist in meeting National Targets
NATIONAL TARGETS FOR ALL AREAS
OBJECTIVE TARGET
FATALITY MANAGEMENT To conclude police activity which disrupts
train movement within an average of 90
minutes from receiving a report of a fatal
incident.
This target excludes Major Incidents and incidents classed as Suspicious, RTC Level Crossing,
Unexplained, Sudden Deaths and Work related deaths.

17. Master Data Management
BTP have achieved this by generating a
baseline of information based on the NLPG
and NSG against their Location Gazetteer.
A rule-based approach has been taken to
evaluate the data and build this baseline. In
effect, they have generated a master index
of their Location Gazetteer.
This index provides a complete and
consistently assembled view of what is
happening and where.

18. Digital National Framework

19. BTP indexed with against NLPG
Not Matched / Matched

20. BTP indexed with against NLPG and NSG
Not Matched / Matched

21. BTP Location Gazetteer Names

22. Where Am I?

23. The NLPG and NSG

24. ATTRIBUTE VALUE
LOCATION THORNE NORTH RAILWAY STATION
TYPE RAILSTN
STREET FIELDSIDE
POST_TOWN DONCASTER
POST_CODE DN8 4HZ
ATTRIBUTE VALUE
LOCATION THORNE NORTH RAILSTN
STREET
POST_TOWN DONCASTER
POST_CODE


Matching Process to Populate the Index

25. BTP Impact Assessment
The BTP Locations are first analysed to understand
the quality (completeness and logical consistency) of
the data. It allows us to make a baseline assessment of
the information.
Business rules check different address
characteristics of the data, focussing on the address-
related elements such as Street Name, Postcode
and Post Town.

26. Index Population - Rules
These checks are applied to themes of BTP location
types. Different groups will contain subtly different
characteristics.
Grouping the data into themes also reduces the number of
rules that BTP have to construct. This makes it easier to
manage the rule base.
Stations (Railway, Disused, …)
Tier 1 (Control Rooms, Metro, …)
Tier 2 (Bridges and Crossings, …)
Tier 3 (Signal Boxes, Sidings, …)

27. Populating the Index using Rules
If
NOT IN THE INDEX
or
PART OF THEME
Then perform the
necessary
conditional checks
If the checks are
true then populate
the index

28. Postcode
Street
Geo
Postcode
Geo
Street
Geo
Geo
Only
Populating the Index with Confidence
-Confidence+

29. Populating the Index using Workflow
Workflow
media
player
controls
Cut, copy,
delete and
re-order
tasks

30. BTP Content Accuracy Percentage
POSTCODE, POSTTOWN, THROUGHFARE 4%
POSTCODE, THROUGHFARE 7%
POSTCODE, POSTTOWN 4%
POSTCODE 8%
POSTTOWN 8%
THROUGHFARE 11%
BTP Baseline Assessment

31. Summary - ALL Total Percentage
Not Matched 1166 15%
Matched 7216 94%
Total 7691
Index Overview with Confidence

32. BTP Content, Update
Less than 10% of the data matches the NLPG or NSG
But we have matched 60-85% of the data, with confidence
BTP
NLPG

33. BTP Content, Append
Less than 20% of the data even contains a Street Name…
…similar characteristics for Postcode and Post Town
???
But we have matched 60-85% of the data, with confidence
BTP
NLPG

34. Advantages
• Leveraging Intelligence
• Information Re-Use
• Accuracy (fit for purpose)
• Rules-based Approach
• Data Centric Intelligence
• Maintaining History

35. Benefits
• Reliable Data – Saving Time, Saving Lives
• Location
• Correct Allocation of Resources
• Correct Incident Reporting

37. Benefits
• Reliable Data – Saving Time, Saving Lives
• Location
• Correct Allocation of Resources
• Correct Incident Reporting
• Addressing the Management of Police
Information (MoPI)