Drones

Municipal drone use is still in its infancy, but some cities are already using them to generate impressive results and relatively low cost.

Public safety presents one attractive use case, and Chula Vista, Calif., which has used drones to respond to calls since October 2018, says they’ve proven invaluable.

“We know there have been lives saved through this technology because it gives our officers better information,” said Vern Sallee, the city’s patrol operations division captain.

A drone operator listens to 911 calls as they come in and can decide on their own to proactively launch the drone to check out the incident first—something that happens 10 to 15 times per day. Half the time, the drone arrives before officers do, feeding live video to them so they can make better decisions about how they respond.

“The program came about with the desire to get more information to police officers before they’re locked into situations where they’re left with really fast decision making based on very limited information,” Sallee said.

The aerial view is especially helpful to officers dealing with a suspect who’s mentally ill. The drone can zoom in on that person’s hands. If no weapon is visible or the subject is moving away from other people, it buys the responding officers time to call in mental health resources or switch to non-lethal weapons.

“We can actually slow the call down and bend the outcome toward success versus rushing in with limited information and taking the risk that it escalates,” Sallee said. “It not only makes officers safer. It makes suspects safer because officers have more information so that they can use the right tactics.”

Chula Vista has also used its drones to follow fleeing suspects. Sometimes they’re aware the drone is following them and they take off on foot to try to outrun it. Usually, they end up exhausted and simply surrender to police when officers arrive. The city doesn’t use drones for surveillance. Any drone in flight is responding to a specific emergency call.

The FAA gave the city special authorization to operate its drones beyond the sight of the operator, although trained observers are still needed to watch the airspace for manned aircraft. It has two launch sites that allow it to cover within minutes an area responsible for 70% of its priority service calls. It hopes to add additional sites this year.

While Chula Vista has been making steady improvements to one drone program, in many other cities, drones are purchased for one purpose and then quickly inspire unrelated uses that span city departments. One such example is Albany, Ore., where drones were originally a tool to help emergency responders but are now also used by public works.

“Originally, we planned on using the drone only for damage assessment following an earthquake,” said Chuck Perino, Albany’s emergency manager. “Quickly we saw that there are a lot of beneficial uses of this technology.”

The city’s drones are playing a key role in emergency response, for example, helping firefighters find people stranded on riverbanks during a major flood in April of last year. But they’ve also used the drones to study how the river looks at various water levels—research that will help the city better predict and respond to future flooding events.

Albany’s public works department also used a drone to map and assess a water treatment wetland. While the drone was significantly cheaper than using a manned aircraft for that work, it wasn’t just about saving money. The department can map the wetland much more often, giving it valuable information to track issues over time.