Context-aware team task allocation to support mobile police surveillance

Abstract

To optimally distribute tasks within police teams during mobile surveillance, a context-aware task allocation system is designed and evaluated with end-users. This system selects and notifies appropriate team members of current incidents, based on context information (officer availability, officer proximity to the incident and incident priority) and decision rules. Eight teams of three experienced police officers evaluated this system in a surveillance task through a virtual environment, comparing it to a non-adaptive system. Task performance, communication, workload and preferences were measured. Results show that team communication, decision making and response times improve using the adaptive system and that this system is preferred. We conclude that context-aware task allocation helps police teams to coordinate incidents efficiently. © 2009 Springer.