Welcome to our feature spotlight blog series! Each post will include a brief overview of a specific PredPol feature. We will cover the benefits of using the feature and how it works. This month we'll take a look at Map Layers. If you would like to see last month's feature spotlight on the Crime Type Filter, click here.

Map Layers:

What are Map Layers?

• Map Layers are a great way to dynamically overlay prediction boxes with crime history. This tool gives you the ability to simultaneously view both future events and the past events that fed into your predictions.

What are the benefits of using Map Layers?

• Not only can you overlay prediction boxes with crime history in a convenient map view, but you can drill down on either view by crime type. Remember that crime types are simply a collection of violation codes. You can customize these at any time.

How to use Map Layers:

• Navigate to Map Layers on the far right-hand side of the app: 

• To add prediction boxes, simply select the required date, patrol area, shift, mission combination. You can also choose a box color that works best for you.

• To add crime history, select a date range, crime type, patrol area combination. You can also hide crimes that were excluded from predictions to get a better sense of what crimes fed into your prediction boxes during the selected time frame.

• The expected output should look something like this:

• For those departments with AVL turned on, you can also add the Patrol Operations Heatmap. This is a great way to get a record of patrol coverage across your community during a given timeframe. The output should look something like this:

• If you do have AVL turned on, you can also add the Vehicle Path. This tool will give you a record of where each patrol vehicle has been on a given day/shift combo. It’ll also give you a record of dosage (time spent in a prediction box). The output should look something like this:

• That's it! You can now easily map prediction boxes and crime history simultaneously.

If you would like to learn more about Map Layers or any other feature: