ELERTS EscortMe – protection for students walking near their campus
October 16, 2012
Smartphone app automatically notifies campus police if a student is in distress.
EscortMe is a new personal safety service provided by ELERTS Corporation. When a campus subscribes to the ELERTS service, students, staff or others concerned about their personal safety may engage a virtual campus escort via their smartphone. See the 1 minute video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
How it works
EscortMe runs as an app on your iPhone or Android smartphone. People who wish to be virtually escorted by campus police just need to press a button in the ELERTS app, while walking to their destination. If a user is threatened and releases the button, a 10 second countdown begins. The user can disable the distress signal if they are not in danger. Otherwise, security staff or campus police are notified that a walker is in distress and a distress report is sent, which includes the walker’s name, phone number, and GPS location. Armed with this information, police and security can respond quickly to aid the person in need.
With the ELERTS system, campus security staff oversees people walking around their campus by using the ELERTS EPIC console. EPIC is a hosted, in-the-cloud system that receives reports from users of the ELERTS app. The ELERTS console displays real-time views of every person actively using EscortMe as they walk around the campus, with locations updated every 15 seconds. Dispatchers can also view a satellite image map of their campus and buildings, to view walkers’ locations.
Why should you use EscortMe?
It is not feasible for campus police to escort every student to their destination. There are simply too many students and the amount of time students would need to wait for a guard would be unreasonable, plus, the cost to provide a police escort for such a large population is prohibitive. With the ELERTS EscortMe system in place, everyone on campus can be escorted.
Some students or staff may feel uneasy about asking to be escorted by a security guard. EscortMe is discreet and convenient. Anyone on campus with an iPhone or Android smartphone can enable a virtual escort and confidently walk to their destination knowing a distress signal will be sent to police if they get in trouble along the way.
EscortMe provides an extra layer of personal protection for students and staff, giving them additional peace of mind while walking alone on campus.
To learn more about how your college or university can enhance personal safety with EscortMe, please contact us.