"We aim to achieve three key objectives with this project," said Phil O'Brien from BTP's Force Intelligence Bureau: "to increase the dissemination of MI to a broader audience of officers; to automate the process ensuring even more timely delivery of relevant information; and to free up analysts time.  All this will further aid us in the fight against crime".

The capability to automate reports means the potential is now available for 'significant change reporting' to reach all levels of the tasking process, from neighbourhood level, throughout regions and right up to Force level.

An additional feature of Lightfoot's Report Module is the ability to automatically alert officers by email or SMS when a specific crime type shows a significant increase, or improvement, enabling immediate investigation.  The next phase of the project will look at how the statistically filtered information from sfn can be linked to the mapping solutions used by the Force.

Deputy Chief Constable, Paul Crowther, summarises, "The implementation of sfn in 2006 has helped us gain insight into volume crime and contributed to the efficient focus and deployment of our resources.  We constantly aim to increase efficiency, and we see the report module giving us even more benefits from our investment in sfn".

About British Transport Police

British Transport Police is the specialist, national police service for Britain's railways.  BTP deals with major and minor crime, disorder and incidents, and covers the rail system in England, Wales and Scotland, including London Underground, Docklands Light Railway, the Glasgow Subway and the Midland Metro and Croydon Tramlink systems.  Its 2,885 police officers, 327 Police Community Support Officers, 218 Special Constables and 1,334 support staff are recruited and trained like those of local forces and have the same powers.  Find out more at www.btp.police.uk.