The question that must be on everyone's lips is: 'Was it worth it?'
The answer probably depends on where you sit within the security industry but, for my part, the measure is fairly simple. The aim of this policy was to reduce the total number of false activations passed to police irrespective of the increase in numbers of systems. The measure must be to determine if this has happened both force by force and on a national scale.
It may be a little premature to start assessing its performance after less than 12 months and without the ability to collate national figures. However, the industry has probably been through its toughest period of change and an indication of the effects of their pain, is the least the police service can do.
The national figures released for 2001 after only three months of the new policy were fairly encouraging: False calls fell by 50,451 over the previous year with an increase of 12,442 systems. The false alarm rate fell from 0.98 to 0.92 false activations per system per year. This was espe-cially encouraging, as the previous year (2000) false calls had increased by 38,240. On a force-by-force basis only five had shown an increase in false calls so again this was very encouraging.
To assess the continuing performance of the policy it is necessary to look at individual forces. I shall use my own force, the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), which is responsible for some 25 per cent of the remotely monitored intruder alarm market and could be considered representative.
The end of last year saw the average false alarm rate drop from 0.75 false activations per system per year to 0.7 – a reduction of 22,000 false calls over the previous year and a drop of nearly 15,000 systems. With the exception of a drop in numbers of systems, this was much the same as the national position. Whilst significant, this was not as significant as our calculations had led us to believe would be the case. Hopefully, it was early days.
We will see some tweaking to the standards… but I hope those tweaks will not weaken what is perhaps the strongest position the industry has seen itself in for a number of years.
Using MPS statistics for a 12 month period ending mid August 2002, it is possible to assess trends and the need for any policy amendments. The average false alarm rate for this period was 0.55 and false calls dropped in excess of 37,000 activations over the 2001 year end figures. Numbers of systems continued to drop and are about 8,000 fewer than at year end 2001.
The above are averages for all systems, but if we focus specifically on confirmed systems and both confirmed and unconfirmed activations passed from them, we can get a more accurate view of how confirmation is working. (Prior to October 2001 an end user who elected to have a confirmed system was permitted to pass both confirmed and unconfirmed activations.)
Latest figures reveal that confirmed systems that only pass confirmed activations, have an average false alarm rate of only 0.025 activations per system per year. This is very much better than the average for all systems. To think that there were some that thought false calls would never break through the one activation per system per year barrier!
A snapshot of systems installed, from October 1 2001 and July 2002, shows that of the 20,000 systems installed in the London area, 41 were warned, 11 had response partially withdrawn to either the intruder or personal attack part of the system and only one had response fully withdrawn. Again, a very significant improvement as a result of adopting confirmation.
The performance of differing types of confirmation is now available and we are now beginning to see that some types of confirmation are better than other types.
Confirmed installations within the MPS that pass only confirmed activations show average false alarm rates:
- Audio confirmation: 0.049 false activations per system per year;
- sequential confirmation: 0.021 false activations per system per year;
- visual confirmation: 0.005 false activations per system per year.
To return to my original question, 'Was it worth it?' From my point of view the answer is a resounding 'Yes!'
No doubt we will see some tweaking to the standards and equipment currently being produced, but I hope that those tweaks will not have the effect of weakening what is perhaps the strongest position the industry has seen itself in for a number of years.
Source
Security Installer
Postscript
By Inspector Kevin Mann, Secretary of the ACPO Security Systems Group
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