Singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA) has put out a tender to find VR solutions to enhance the training of its staff involved in dengue home inspections and public health offences. These include smoking in prohibited areas, and littering in public places.
The NEA are looking to VR to better prepare staff for scenarios that are tricky to replicate in a classroom. It would also assist with scenarios that could be more risky such as inspecting rooftops or construction sites.
Using VR would supplement the classroom training that environment officers undergo to learn how to deal with different situations posed by members of the public. Officers might face uncooperative offenders in their daily enforcement rounds. Or offenders who refuse to provide details to officers.
The NEA said the results of several proof-of-concept trials, conducted in 2019, were positive.
“To ensure that our officers are well equipped to deal with the challenges of tomorrow, skills upgrading and enhancing productivity are important aspects of our strategy to make NEA a change-responsive and future-ready organisation,” said NEA Chief Executive Officer Tan Meng Dui.
“Tapping on the technology such as VR for the training of our enforcement officers is part of this strategy.”
The tender is open until March 9 2020. NEA will be implementing the VR system sometime in Q3 2020.