BOOST TO MET’S VEHICLE RECOVERY CAPABILITY
The Metropolitan Police Service has installed a new software system to help tackle an increase in the number of vehicles seized in the nation’s capital.
The MPS’s Vehicle Recovery and Examination Service (VRES) is using the Easy Link Vehicle Information System for Vehicle Recovery (ELVIS–VR) to support it in dealing more efficiently with unlicensed and untaxed vehicles, and those used in crime or involved in collisions.
The move forms part of the MPS’s ongoing drive to clamp down on illegal activity on London’s roads. VRES provides a specialist 24-hour pan London service which involves transporting vehicles seized by MPS officers to dedicated or contract-managed car pounds for forensic and/or mechanical examination and storage.
Vehicles are ultimately either reunited with their owners or, if ownership cannot be confirmed, they can be sold at auction or crushed and recycled into items ranging from new cars through to drinks cans.
A new vehicle pound has recently opened in north west London. This is in addition to VRES’s existing facility in south east London and its contract-managed pounds.
The software will help to streamline VRES business processes, allowing staff to manage information about vehicles seized by police across the multiple vehicle pound sites.
The system works by recording all information about a vehicle's removal and the nature of its disposal in real time, together with financial details relating to the costs incurred.
The Met anticipates that the time saved and reduction in paperwork will enable the VRES to process many more vehicles each year if required.
Developed by Bristol-based WPC Software, ELVIS-VR will also assist the Met in crime pattern analysis by highlighting any links between vehicles and criminals and reduce the time taken to reunite members of the public with their vehicles.
Steve Ditchburn, who is head of VRES, said: “Through the introduction of this new software our overriding aim is to improve the effectiveness of VRES’s operations. Every vehicle seized relates to a crime detected or a potential crime prevented – this in turn helps to make the Capital’s streets safer for us all”.
VRES continues to strive to meet demand for its services and it has also responded to the new legislation to deal with uninsured vehicles – processing almost 10,000 vehicles in one year.
ENDS
Notes to editors
For further information on the MPS’s Vehicle Recovery and Examination Service and for interviews with the Head of VRES Steve Ditchburn please contact Media Outcomes. Tel 0845 058 9429 or email suzanne@mediaoutcomes.co.uk
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