The goal of the trial was to test new forms of service delivery. This has succeeded, although not every visitor could be directly assisted at the unmanned police location. We have tried out what works and what doesnt, says Maarten de Laat, program manager of Service Delivery at the police. We will take the new insights into the next experiments.
At the Smart Police Station, located at the Stationsplein in Utrecht, anyone can digitally contact the police without an appointment. There are no police colleagues present. Hosts and security personnel act as the face of the location.
Many visitors were able to be assisted directly at the Smart Police Station. Various passersby successfully filed reports at the police location, and there was frequent use of video calling with the police.
Visitors mainly came by to report something or to file a complaint. This often went well, but the current digital police services do not cover all scenarios. For instance, visitors still had to go to a regular police station if they wanted to report a lost (foreign) passport or if they could not log in with their DigiD.
In addition to identifying when filing a report, several other areas for improvement were identified. Maarten: We have started offering existing digital services on tablets via politie.nl. Visitors provided feedback that the user-friendliness of this could be improved. And the availability of services in multiple languages is a frequently heard wish.
Currently, preparations are being made to start pilots at other locations in the Netherlands. This allows us to test different variants. Of course, the valuable lessons from the SPS pilot will be incorporated.
