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Complex communications system goes live in Hong Kong
The Hong Kong Police Force has entered a new era in command and control, implementing the Control Communications System (CCIII) for the New Territories Regions and the Kowloon Regions in March 2006. Dawn Read speaks John Gherghet about the contract.
The Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) has 28,000 uniformed officers and asupporting civilian staff of 7,500. Running a fleet of 1,800 vehicles ofvarying types from armoured personnel carriers to motorcycles, HKPF’s previous command and control communications system was due to reach the end of its useful life in 2004. Following a successful budget acquisition ofHK$948m, in June 2001 to replace the aging system with the third generation commandand control communications system (CCIII).
The CCIII system comprises of 5 sub-systemsincluding the IntegratedCommunication System (ICS), the 999Emergency Telephone System (ETS), theAutomatic Vehicle Location System andGeographic Information System (AVLS & GIS),the Mobile Computing and Messaging System(MCS), and the Third Generation Computer Assisted Command and Control System (CACCS3).
CCIII is more than a replacement system for the previous system that had been in servicesince 1990. Riding on state-of-the-art information and communication technologies(ICT), CCIII is the mission-critical system thatprovides the Force with highly responsive and resilient capabilities to better addressincreasing safety and security needs that have emerged around the world. The new integrated radio system combined with the MCS enables the officers in the field directaccess to databases of police information forimmediate identification of criminals and wanted persons. The new ETS identifies the caller location, helping the call-taker screensout false reports and identifies callersreporting the same incident.
In addition, the AVLS & GIS support the CACCS3 Computer Aided Dispatch system by further enabling call-takers to screen duplicate calls concerning the same incident and dispatchers to quickly identify the police units closest to a newincident. These features will improve thequality and efficiency of police response to incidents and will help ensure that the right resources are available and assigned.
The tender and award Tenders were invited by the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region for the design, supply, delivery, installation,implementation, commissioning of equipment, hardware, software and other related services for the Third Generation Command and Control Communications System (CCIII)specified in the Project Specification on a turnkey solution basis through open tendering in early 2002.
All tender proposals were evaluated byexperts in the Hong Kong PoliceForce nominated among informationtechnology, communications, end-useroperation and financial streams. Selected tenderers were invited to demonstrate specific and crucial system features during the demonstration session. The award was made to the tenderer, i.e. Motorola, who was assessed by theGovernment to be fully capable ofundertaking the Contract and whose tender was determined by the Government to be the most advantageous one in terms ofthe specific evaluation criteria set out in the CCIII tender document.
Implementation: This contract is the only Hong Kong Government project to be brought in on budget, on time and it is the most complex IT project in its history. With this in mind, we asked Peter Chan, HKPF if there were any lessons during implementationthat similar forces could benefit from. Commenting, Chan said,
“CCIII is amega system and is the largest ICT project ever undertaken by the Force.With such a significant scope andmagnitude of scale, a three-tier projectmanagement structure has beendeployed to ensure that this missioncritical system was implementedaccording to specifications, within schedule and budget.”
“At the top is the ExecutiveCommittee (EC), co-chaired by 2 seniorDirectorates. The EC has the fullauthority as well as the associated responsibility and accountability for theproject. The second tier is the Project Management Team (PMT) that is chaired by Assistant Commissioner of Police -Information Systems. The PMT is responsible for project management and quality assurance activities and reports to the EC. Its members comprise both ICT technical experts, as well as police officers to ensure business interests and assurance controls in project administration, technical specifications anduser interests are maintained.
The Project Office (PO) is the third tier of the project management structure, also comprising technical teams and user team. It acts as the executive arm of the PMT with responsibility to perform day-to-day project management and monitor all aspects of the project performance as well as to assure the quality of the end product. In summary, end users’ interests are fully represented at each of the three tiers. With strong leadership and team work exhibiting strong motivation presentacross the entire project management structure, we were able to successfully roll out the CCIII system to respective Police Regions, meeting specifications on-schedule, and within budget.”
Continuing, Chan pointed out, “Apart from the three-tier project management governance structure, we also took a step forward in the risk management framework to proactively monitor and evaluate all the risk items that might affect the project schedule periodically. If risks items were identified, PMT and ECwould be alerted in accordance with the severity and resolutions of the risk items. CCIII contractor was required to provide solution to resolve or mitigate the risk. Force’s technical teams would provide technical support to user and examine contractor’s proposed resolution. Force worked closely with the CCIII contractor to tackle the problem and to ensure the risks were properly addressed without affecting theproject schedule.
”Realising the enormous impact CCIII wouldhave on the Force communications, closeliaison and collaboration with end users hadbeen proactively maintained during the course of the project implementation. This wasachieved through a structured internal communication programme that consisted of a series of visits with briefings andpresentations on CCIII to operational users,including respective Regional Commanders and their senior officers, police staff associations as well as Police Public Relations Bureau. This proactive approach helped to promote the image of CCIII project teams andenhance its relationship with variousformations and units.
An important element of the rollout in eachmajor phase was the on-site support teams,which operated around the clock during theinitial two weeks providing end users with amost convenient technical support and usageguidance service. This service helped toaccomplish the seamless transition from theprevious system to CCIII, which was one ofthe main hallmarks of the successful rollout.Thereafter, the Central Helpdesk exists toprovide 24 hour support service to end users. John Gherghetta, Motorola also explainedthat there had been no adverse issues during roll-out because of exceptional leadership coming from HKPF and the open relationshipthat both the supplier (Motorola) and theforce had. Gherghetta also explained that due to thecomplexity and scale of the project, during thetendering process each potential vendor hadto show proof of concept in a three day trial. This was conducted infront of both users and the evaluation team. “It was quite a challengeto physically demonstrate the actual featuresthat would be implemented three years on.
”He was also quick to point out that thedemonstrations were not on paper orcomputerised simulations but they had to build a mirror of what the system wouldactually look like in real-life to show exactlywhat would be delivered.InnovationCCIII aims at improving the overall work efficiency of the Force through the adoption of the latest ICT technologies and uniquedesign. These include: Overlapping radio coverage design – Unique innovative fail-safe design to have cellsites with overlapping coverage connected tothree different zone switches, minimising theimpact on coverage in the unlikely event offailure of cell sites and/or an entire zoneswitch.
Open standard radio infrastructure –Enables future sourcing of radios from different manufacturers according to specificneeds of units / formations. It also enables theestablishment of the Unified DigitalCommunication Platform (UDCP) for various Government department users of the HKSAR to ride on. Automatic Vehicle Location System (AVLS)– The AVLS makes use of Global Positioning System (GPS) and other supplementary technologies such as map matching, and dead reckoning to provide accurate position information on police vehicles for speedy deployment of resources. It is noteworthy that the Force has designed and implemented twohandy and useful features in the AVLS vehicle operation which radically improve the integration and performance of the equipment?
The first one is a timer-box, which is a soft-power-down tool which delays interruptions inpower to the AVLS computer equipment until the system has properly shut itself down. This box also allows for the computer and radioequipment to come on automatically with theignition key facilitating quick location of thevehicle; and?The other tool is an AVLS Status Indicator, which works in vehicles without computer screens, and allows an operator to diagnose several simple types of equipment failure by using a pair of LED lights.With the use of advanced wireless andmobile computing technologies in CCIII, theForce remains at the frontier in the applicationof advanced technology in the field of publicsecurity.
How CCIII is helping improve efficiency of the service Chan explained that CCIII provides major benefits to frontline officers and hence improved efficient and effective emergency services to the people of Hong Kong by application of state-of-the-art ICT technologies through the following design and capabilities:
Territory wide communicationcapability – Cross-region radio communication for both voice and data on the same talkgroup for units that require territory-wide patrol; Cross-formation communication Motorola capability – Enable communication amongst beat patrol, Traffic and other Formations using the same radio; Short Data Service – Portable radios and mobile data terminals can send and receive short messages and perform vehicle and person checks through the External Database Enquiries System without the need of calling console, thereby providing an alternative especially when console is occupied with other more urgent tasks; Tracking of mobile resourcesand incidents – Provision of AVLS equipment on selectedvehicles and display of resources on the digital map of Mobile Data Terminal orGIS terminals enablesdispatchers in the RegionalCommand and ControlCentres to instantly identifythe location of incidents andpolice mobile units on digitalmaps, and to make the bestdecision on police deployment.
This functionality provides dispatchers with more information in handling an incident and thus improves the quality of police response to emergency service requests; Better user interface – A Graphical User Interface with visual and audio alerts, supporting bilingual Chinese and English data entry, and with easy-to-memorise pull-downmenus has improved the man-machine interface and reduced training effort; and Enhanced 999 emergency services – The automatic identification of the number and location of a caller on a fixed line telephone is displayed on a digital map without the need tomanually type in the details, thereby increasingefficiency and eliminating errors in data entry.
In summary, CCIII has improved the overall quality and efficiency of emergency services tothe people of Hong Kong, with enrichedfunctions and features in theefficient deployment andutilisation of police resourcesassigned to each incident. A shared possibility CCIII is not only a digital radio infrastructure built on an open standard, which allows an incremental approach to future system enhancement, but also proves to be the most cost-effective, scalable and interoperable communication platform forthe public safety organisationsof the HKSAR. CCIII is developed as a common radio platform, the Unified DigitalCommunication Platform (UDCP), and can beshared by multi-disciplinary agencies and Government departments.
For everyday usage, each agency has virtually its own section of the platform for its exclusive use with security and autonomy, as in the case of a Virtual Private Network. And to the future, The Force completed the implementation of CCIII system in March 2006 providing servicefor police officers serving within three Regional Command and Control Centres and numerous District Report Rooms scattered over the territories. CCIII system had been proved tobe a reliable, efficient and versatile system deploying both information and communication technologies.
However, someother major formations in the Force have been facing the aging problems of their analogue radio system and increasing maintenance cost. These formations are exploring the feasibility to migrate their analogue radio system intoa more advanced and reliable digital platform, such as CCIII.
