{"420581":{"#nid":"420581","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Industrial Engineers Help Police Optimize Operations","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EPolicing can be a logistical challenge \u2014 scheduling officers for shifts, deploying them to various zones, and tracking where and when crime happens. When it comes to protecting the Georgia Tech campus, it only makes sense that the Georgia Tech Police Department (GTPD) would partner with some of the best industrial engineers in the country to do it right.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p4\u0022\u003EIt was about a year and a half ago when \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/users\/david-goldberg\u0022\u003EDavid Goldberg\u003C\/a\u003E, assistant professor in Georgia Tech\u2019s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial \u0026amp; Systems Engineering, contacted GTPD to see if he could make himself useful in the department\u2019s work. Goldberg\u2019s research focuses on applied probability, optimization, and machine learning.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003E\u201cI wanted to find a way to use my work on campus,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes as an academic you lose sight of what you can do right here.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003ESince then, Goldberg and a team of undergraduates have been working with GTPD and the Atlanta Police Department (APD) to make enhanced use of their data from recent years. So far, Goldberg\u2019s team has input the rich set of data to present visualizations of when and how crime has taken place.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003EThe preliminary analysis showed that crime has dropped, both on campus and in Atlanta, in recent years. The project\u2019s next steps will be to see if the researchers can use that data to predict what crime will look like in the future, and to build more optimization into what GTPD and APD are already doing. They will analyze how crimes may correlate with one another, how crime clusters, and how it changes over time, especially in relation to how Atlanta has grown and evolved in recent years.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s a huge amount of creativity involved, which I think is vital to developing innovative solutions,\u201d said David Wang, a fourth-year student who has been working on the project for about five months. The project involves around half a dozen undergraduate students and recently won a President\u2019s Undergraduate Research Award.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003EResearchers are making use of resources such as Microsoft MapPoint, Google Earth, and Geographic Information System software as they examine crime locations and police zones. Knowing that their efforts will play a role in keeping others safe has added significance to the work.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003E\u201cWhen we come up with suggestions and solutions, we know they will potentially be applied in real-world practice, and that means huge responsibility,\u201d said Henry Wang, a fourth-year student who has been part of the project since fall 2014.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003EThat responsibility, though, has motivated the team to work harder and take the work more seriously. Goldberg believes the impact of working with something so close to home creates excitement and energy that can\u2019t be reproduced in a lab.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s just so different from other research work I have done,\u201d said Bingyi Bao, another undergraduate researcher. \u201cThe topics of most research work are about inventing new theories, but this project is about us.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003EFor GTPD, working with researchers gives them another way to get to know the campus and who they are working to serve and protect. Not only does their police work protect individuals in the community, but it also protects the research enterprise at work every day.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003E\u201cI can\u2019t impress enough what it means to us to have this partnership,\u201d said Randy Ory, crime analyst for GTPD.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003EFor Goldberg, it\u2019s a chance to collaborate and use his expertise to improve the campus community. With the early success of working with GTPD, he is looking for other ways to build optimization into campus operations.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p5\u0022\u003E\u201cWe want to use sophisticated analytics and big data technology to help support, optimize, and fine-tune policies and decisions,\u201d he said. \u201cI love for academics to have a direct and meaningful impact on local communities.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EStudents and a professor in Industrial \u0026amp; Systems Engineering are lending their expertise to the Georgia Tech Police Department and Atlanta Police Department to help them track and solve crime more efficiently.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Students and a professor in Industrial \u0026 Systems Engineering are lending their expertise to the Georgia Tech Police Department and Atlanta Police Department to help them track and solve crime more efficiently."}],"uid":"27469","created_gmt":"2015-07-06 11:29:40","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:18:52","author":"Kristen Bailey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-07-06T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-07-06T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"421841":{"id":"421841","type":"image","title":"Georgia Tech Police","body":null,"created":"1449254306","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 18:38:26","changed":"1475895160","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:52:40","alt":"Georgia Tech Police","file":{"fid":"202689","name":"policeofficers.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/policeofficers_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/policeofficers_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":797581,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/policeofficers_0.jpg?itok=1MrcBdff"}}},"media_ids":["421841"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/police.gatech.edu\/","title":"GTPD"},{"url":"http:\/\/isye.gatech.edu\/","title":"Industrial and Systems Engineering"},{"url":"http:\/\/urop.gatech.edu\/","title":"Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program"}],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"2408","name":"campus safety"},{"id":"438","name":"data"},{"id":"13768","name":"David Goldberg"},{"id":"3390","name":"Georgia Tech Police Department"},{"id":"2543","name":"GTPD"},{"id":"1191","name":"industrial engineering"},{"id":"426","name":"isye"},{"id":"1773","name":"police"},{"id":"167060","name":"safety"},{"id":"453","name":"undergraduate research"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:kristen.bailey@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EKristen Bailey\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EInstitute Communications\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}