Public safety mashups to support policy makers

Abstract

To shape an effective and sound public safety policy, policy makers have a need for statistical insights in factors that may influence public safety. Today, there is a wide variety of sources available that contain data that is related to public safety. The data in these sources varies from register to survey data. There is a growing need to mash data from these sources and to create a coherent and uniform view of public safety. In this paper, we present a tool to create public safety mashups. The tool collects and processes safety related data from relevant sources. Mashups are presented in a uniform and accessible way to support policy makers in developing sound public safety policies. Besides data that is directly related to public safety, also contextual information, such as demographic data, is included in the tool that may help the user to understand the development of public safety aspects in the course of time. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.