Incident handling computers

All Police forces have incident handling computers; which are normally mini computers. All 999 calls are logged onto these. In the Operations room, the controllers must know where each police car is. Computers track all police vehicles. Each vehicle has an encoder mounted on the dashboard which is a microprocessor. It has a number of buttons on it. The police will press these buttons to show

• What they are doing
• Where they are.

When a 999 call is received the controller can search for all police cars in the area excluding ones involved in certain duties. The best car can then be chosen and instructions are sent by radio control to that car.