The Google internet search engine has become a part of life – so why not a part of security management? Using Google maps as a haulage security tool was aired recently.
Howard Smith, a former security manager with a multi-national logistics company, gave up, as he said, a secure job with a good salary to go into consultancy. His Wellingborough-based firm BRM Solutions does among other things insurance investigations for hauliers. And so it was during a journey to Carlisle that he had the idea that, eventually, brought an audience to a launch event in Northampton. He had gone north to take four crime scene photographs – the most expensive four photos he’d ever taken, he recalled. "It suddenly dawned on me: where this crime had been committed, was no more than 400m from where a lorry park was; but it was around the corner; and the driver didn’t know it was there."
Now people in Howard Smith’s audience knew well what a bugbear secure lorry parking – or rather the nationwide lack of it – has been for years. While you could blame some lorry drivers for pocketing an allowance and parking on insecure roadsides rather than pay for proper truck stops, other culprits are the motorway service station operators – at the event there was talk of lorries being clamped for parking in empty coach parking spaces, because lorry places were all taken. Or: the planning process is so long and the power of not in my backyard citizens so strong, that councils will not give permission to lorry parks in the first place. Or: warehouses due to receive a load will not accept a lorry if it arrives early; it parks somewhere dark and where thieves feel safe to operate, and goods worth perhaps many thousands of pounds are in effect open to the world apart from the trailer curtain. There’s a perception that haulage criminals steal high-value yet portable goods, such as mobile phones and other telecoms and IT products; that’s not necessarily the case. A trailer may be slashed and a phone call put in by a gang member to say what’s on the pallets – nappies, say. The gang will take it or leave it depending on whether the decision is that the stolen goods could find a market. And, the stolen goods may well be distributed around the country at a speed the legitimate logistics sector might envy. So however you apportion the blame for crime against road haulage, it’s happening. Howard Smith recalled that at his old logistics firm, the problem was not in the depots; it was theft from vehicles, and driver hijackings, outside. As he admitted, it’s a subject he gets passionate about: "Let’s remember there’s people at the end of this; there’s the kidnappings of drivers."
Hence Howard Smith’s idea that became the haulnet website. It’s a multi-lingual journey planner, using Google maps. You type in your start point and destination and the site shows your route. It can highlight where it’s safe to park, including showing sat-nav photos; and known crime hot-spots. The technology can let you add any detail (diesel stops? Police stations?) to give a driver choices about where to turn off the road, whether the driver logs on himself on his laptop in-cab or rings the traffic office. As Howard said, drivers are, generally, quite responsible; and in any case if a driver runs out of legal hours he can be on the road, he has to stop.
To work, as Howard added, any such website has to be regularly updated and with data in a consistent way nationally. There is scope to send email alerts, if a hot-spot is reported; and the TruckPol police unit based in Warwickshire – its field intelligence officer Alan Soames was among those at the meeting, as was the Road Haulage Association’s security liaison lady Chrys Rampley – in its 2008 annual report for instance detailed which motorways and A-roads have which sorts of haulage crime. Howard Smith stressed that it’s not a short-term project; and yes, it is a risk he is taking. The website doesn’t have any public funding and the plan is to pay for it through advertising, yes, in the recession – although he, like other consultants, did suggest that the market for consultancy is relatively good, as clients turn to consultants for a particular task for a set time, as a cheaper option than a full-timer.
Speaking to Professional Security Magazine afterwards, Howard Smith quoted from the Truckpol 2008 figures that theft of fuel, and household goods – such as the humble toiletries and washing powder – are stolen more often than electronic goods. The idea of haulnet is, he said, applying the rule of crime prevention; taking away the opportunity, of lorries parked insecurely. As he put it, a 40-foot vehicle going at 50mph is secure, by comparison. "You wouldn’t leave your wallet out; or a valuable painting; you would put it somewhere safe."
Some TruckPol 2008 figures: Thefts of vehicles outnumber thefts from vehicles. The same three police force areas have most of both crimes: the Met, West Yorkshire (where the M1 and M62 motorways meet) and Kent (thanks to the A2 and A20 leading to the Channel Tunnel). However districts more off the beaten track also feature: "Derbyshire has several areas with distribution centres for companies handling consumer goods and electronics and as such experience thefts in the areas close to these centres." Lay-bys on the local A50 suffers thefts; also singled out by the report are the A14, A43 and A34; and, in Essex, around Grays and Tilbury container port. TruckPol, quoting court cases, warn that these organised criminals may collude with corrupt drivers and warehouse employees.
Background: TruckPol is part of the national ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service. It gathers information on national road freight crime. It estimates the cost of such crime to the UK of up to £1 billion a year, and the average loss of each incident as more than £25,000. Haulage contracts are also jeopardised; and victims of crime lose business as a result.
http://www.truckpol.com
