Advanced Mobile Operations Simulator (AMOS)

he Advanced Mobile Operations Simulator (A.M.O.S.) is a fully interactive one person Driving Simulator that utilizes five monitors to provide a realistic 225-degree view of the road. This provides a view that encompasses the driver's full peripheral vision. The scenarios dictate that the student operates in both patrol and emergency vehicle operations (E.V.O.), The A.M.O.S. provides immediate feedback to the officers regarding their strengths and weakness.

The A.M.O.S. is just like sitting in, a real patrol car, it has a bucket seat with the all important seat- belt, a dashboard with operational speedometer, turn signals, four-way flashers, horn, and a siren that can be activated for emergency calls. It also has non-operational buttons for the headlights and windshield wipers, and is equipped with a police radio where the instructor can give the officer radio calls to see how they handle the radio while driving.

One of the most interesting features of the A.M.0.S. is that under the seat there is a speaker that gives the student the sensation of being in a real patrol car from feeling and hearing the engine running to hitting a curb, or a street sign, hitting a pedestrian, or another vehicle or building, even riding on grass, if you screech the tires or skid you can even hear and feel that.

One important part of the A.M.O.S. is that once a student has a collision with either another vehicle or a building or pedestrian the scenario ends at that point. This is where another feature is introduced, the replay or playback where the instructor can show the student when and where they made their mistakes or questionable decisions or used good judgment and be able to learn from that.

A.M.O.S. training gives students, both those completing in-service training and recruits, the ability to practice sharpening their decision making skills for normal patrol as well as emergency response driving. The student gets to practice making decisions in simulated life and death situations similar to those they actually encounter on the road without putting themselves or the public at risk. This concept means that a student can see and experience the consequences of an improper decision and learn what actions should have been taken. It also gives the instructor instant feedback that they can use to help the student correct the mistakes they might have made. The simulator's purpose is not to teach driving skills because it does not provide all of the physical sensations of motion and responsiveness of a normal patrol vehicle, but it gives us another tool to help lower accidents in law enforcement.

The A.M.O.S. has 135 scenarios, which were developed to focus on different aspects of law enforcement driving. A scenario is a computer generated video clip ranging in times from 1 to 5 minutes long where the student has to drive and make certain decisions. The purpose of the first 2 or 3 scenarios is to help the student become aquainted with "driving the simulator" and to the simulated city which is called "center city." These scenarios are also used to learn basic defensive driving tactics.

After completing the warm- up exercises the student will be put into scenarios where they are following a vehicle and another vehicle makes a movement which could be dangerous. For example, pulling out from the curb into the officers path, rolling through a stop sign, and moving aggressively into the path of the vehicle the student is following. Some of the things we will look for as instructors are proper speed for the area they are driving in and proper following distance. Foot position is also important and we look to see if they cover the brake pedal in anticipation of possible danger. Proper speed was mentioned because in the simulators "center city" location there are school zones, hospitals, and shopping malls where they need to use good scanning tactics to become aware of ever-changing driving conditions.

After completing the first group of scenarios we'll tell the student that we're going to begin to have them respond to emergency calls with lights and sirens. Examples: person with a gun, robbery in progress, assist officer calls etc. We may even broadcast over the radio additional information just to see how they handle several things at once and to see if they develop tunnel vision which is where they lose sight of everything around them and only focus on things directly in front of them and wind up getting involved in accidents. With the A.M.O.S. we also have the ability to create our own scenarios based on the kinds of mistakes our officers here in Philadelphia are making.

The A.M.O.S. also has an instructor station that is linked to the simulator with a computer where the instructor can feed the scenarios to the student. A radio console is also present through which instructors can monitor and communicate with the student. The instructor's monitor also has the ability to change views through the computer such as looking from an overhead view without changing the student's view of the scenario. Right now we are in the process of training in-service officers with multiple accidents within a two-year time span. This training takes approximately 3 hours.