National police chief Pol Gen Somyot Poompunmuang on Wednesday launched a new mobile phone emergency service app called "Police i lert U" which will allow people in Bangkok to quickly contact officers when they need assistance.
Pol Gen Somyot said the service would provide an additional channel for the public to notify policemen of criminal incidents apart from the hotline 191 which often experiences trunk line capacity problems caused by fake or incorrect calls.
The app requires a user to sign up with full name, email, national ID or passport number and mobile phone number including profile photo. The user is asked to share their location to help save time in trying to locate them. It also has a function to call for an ambulance.
The app is available for free in Thai and English, and for iOS and Android mobile devices.
Pol Gen Somyot said the app proved successful during a one-month test-run in March in limited areas supervised by the Bangkok Metropolitan Police Bureau.
“The results of the trial run have been highly successful, so [the app] is ready for people in Bangkok areas to use for emergency notifications from June onwards,” the national police chief said.
MBP deputy commissioner Pol Maj Gen Chanthawit Rammasut said officers of 88 police stations across the capital and metropolitan police divisions 1 to 9 had been trained to respond to emergency alerts through the application.
He said the users’ online notifications are immediately sent to the police radio control and command centres in charge of assisting officers in suppressing crimes and monitoring their performance.
Pol Maj Gen Chanthawit earlier said the bureau expected the new app would allow city police to reach each caller within a short period, adding the ambitious goal was within four minutes.
