IT staff at British Transport Police have worked around
the clock to update systems following last month's bombings in
London.
In the immediate aftermath of the 7 July blasts IT staff had to
update the Vivista command and control system to cope with the
thousands of extra officers from other forces who rushed to help
the investigation.
On 8 and 9 July the British Transport Police IT team made
hurried modifications to the system, which had been configured only
to recognise officers from British Transport Police.
The Blue8 geographic information system (GIS) also required
speedy upgrading, said Andrew Watson, head of technology at British
Transport Police. "We had to make real-time modifications to the
GIS systems as most forces that came to the assistance of the
British Transport Police have not deployed GIS on railway
networks."
Reliability of the command and control system was critical as
the system had to record every reported incident. "We could not
afford for the command and control system to fall over," Watson
said.
Database administrators and other IT staff have been working
around the clock and at weekends to make sure the system works. "I
cannot fault the professionalism of our IT staff," Watson said.
Pressure on the British Transport Police IT department was
already intense before the bombings, with staff working on moving
headquarters to Camden from Tavistock Place, which was within a few
hundred metres of one of the 7 July explosions, as well as a
UK-wide refresh of 1,600 PCs.
NT4 desktops are being replaced by Windows XP running on HP PCs.
The roll-out to London Underground was completed in June, Scottish
operations were updated last month and work in the North East
begins this week. British Transport Police is also replacing its
wide area network.