Loyola Marymount’s Department of Public Safety will launch a tailored version of the LiveSafe app on campus in November as part of a larger campus safety effort that will replace some of the campus’ blue light emergency phones.
As reported by The Loyolan, the free-to-download app is expected to be a more robust and convenient safety option for students. University officials say that the app will also fill gaps caused by expensive problems with several of the campus’ blue light safety poles around campus, as the app will allow students to directly contact the Department of Public Safety without having to first find and walk to a blue light station.
The university’s Department of Public Safety says it will be removing most of the emergency phones on campus, but will leave the stations located in parking garages in case students have poor signal on their mobile device.
In advance of the app’s launch, The Loyolan conducted a non-scientific survey of 190 Loyola Marymount students to gauge interest in the app. Of the students polled, 70% agreed that student options should be updated with regards to contacting Public Safety in times of emergency. A further 73.3% of respondents agreed that having the app on their phone would make them feel safer on campus.
As with other deployments, the LiveSafe platform at Loyola Marymount will feature four key safety measures: direct 9-1-1 dialing, the ability to report an incident, a list of student resources and the SafeWalk feature, which enables students to choose someone from their contacts list to send their location, destination and planned walking route so that the contact can track the user’s progress.
In addition to enabling students to call and text Public Safety in cases of emergency, when students use the app to call 9-1-1 it sends the student’s location to Public Safety automatically to better assist emergency responders. The safety map feature of the app will show the locations of campus safety resources such as the Public Safety office, Student Health Services, Student Psychological Services and the locations of automated external defibrillators (AED).
