Using tracking technology developed almost a decade ago for the financial community, ProNet Inc. is marketing a security tracking service for college students and employees.
CampusTrac works the opposite from traditional paging, explained Kelly Love, manager of investor relations for ProNet. When users push a button on the CampusTrac unit, a small transmitter within the unit sends a signal to a central receiving station, in this case the campus police department.
Using computerized maps of the campus, police can pinpoint the location of the student or college employee.
ProNet’s tracking division, formed in 1988, initially marketed tracking technology to banks and other financial institutions. A tracking device attached to valuables automatically signals law enforcement when tampered with.
Dave Wood, president of the tracking division, came aboard three years ago with the mission to develop a new application for tracking technology, said Love. He formulated the idea behind CampusTrac.
A major incentive for colleges to use CampusTrac is to relieve liability in crimes, said Love. “We did some market studies,” explained Love. “We’re starting to see a lot more awareness of premise-based liability. Now campuses are accountable for what happens on campus.”
She said their research showed nighttime library use at colleges and universities has declined because of crime.
Some of the heightened attention on university crime follows the Campus Crime Act, passed several years ago, which requires colleges and universities to report crime statistics, said Love. The law also stipulates that crime reporting must be standardized among colleges across the country.
“Universities are hungry for something like [CampusTrac],” said Love. The system consists not only of transmitters-the devices-and receivers, but test units are spread across campus, so users can test their unit anytime. A green light means its working. Each time a unit is tested, the signal is logged with campus security. So if a student or university employee is attacked on campus, but has not tested the CampusTrac unit in four months, that person could be inclined to bear greater liability in personal damages than had the university not deployed CampusTrac and informed students of the security option.
“We can say the user has not tested the unit. It puts liability on the individual and not the university.”
ProNet expects CampusTrac to be offered much like a lab fee, where students pay $200 or $300 a year to use a unit, said Love. A university could require students who don’t want CampusTrac to sign a waiver, again relieving the institution’s liability.
CampusTrac is used at one college in the Northeast and three other colleges have commissioned ProNet to conduct site surveys and feasibility studies for the system.
The current CampusTrac user device, Security Escort, attaches to a key chain and is produced by a third party. ProNet is developing its own CampusTrac unit, which will be available next summer, said Love. The new unit will offer more sophisticated features and will operate at a frequency that allows for greater transmission distances. ProNet will market its own unit to larger universities and continue using Security Escort at smaller schools.
A second generation of ProNet’s CampusTrac unit is on the drawing board, which “will be a pager with a panic button,” noted Love.
ProNet is marketing CampusTrac to other campus-based organizations like hospitals and office complexes.
