The Municipality of Trento Local Police Command is involved in the European project MARVEL through collaboration with the Innovation and Digital Transition Service and the research institute FBK. Developing new technologically advanced systems is increasingly essential for a modern and open public administration that seeks practical solutions to counter all actions that put the citizens and communities at risk.

The proposed framework that the European consortium is implementing for our city is focused on four significant locations and, in some respects, problematic aspects. The management of events of varying sizes, both in terms of the number of people and the different periods in which they occur, can be facilitated using artificial intelligence algorithms that suggest solutions for counting the flows of people in the city centre, monitoring parking lots and reporting any violations, to the delicate issue of combating petty crime. These are only the most evident advantages this handshake between computer science and public authorities can solve.
After careful analysis of all issues related to privacy and sensitive data flows, the installation of new hardware is enabling the development of software that, once operational, will undoubtedly be a valuable tool in urban security and public space management. In addition, machine learning mechanisms, which form the basis of computational logic, will refine the system’s functioning through the population of various databases.

The Local Police Commander of the Municipality of Trento expressed a positive opinion on the developed system: “The developed system allows our control centre operators to identify potential danger situations in real-time, allowing us to assess what is happening and make quick decisions about whether or not to intervene” was the first comment.

“To give an example, – continued the representative of the Local Police – the solution for counting people in a square, once the algorithms are refined, could allow patrols to be deployed more rationally, avoiding dedicating personnel to the control of a single public space during an event, but rather over a period in which it is not necessary because the occupancy of the space, in terms of maximum allowed presence, is well below the limits allowed by law. This functionality can also lead to economic savings for organizers, who would no longer be forced to pay for a security service since monitoring the number of attendees would be entrusted to the system”.

“The future evolution, – finally suggests the Commander – thanks to the collection of a large amount of data and information, could be found in a system that proposes predictive analyses, thus giving the possibility of diverting traffic flow, avoiding related slowdowns and inconvenience, or concentrating efforts regarding the deployment of Local Police personnel in certain locations and time slots, also acting as a preventive deterrent to possible criminal actions”