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Commanding collaboration
In order to meet Civil Contingency responsibilities sharing of information and the most efficient means in which to achieve this will impact upon command and control systems. In order to identify just what this means to both industry and user, The BAPCO Journal raises the issue with a number of suppliers and asks what impact collaboration will have on command and control and how it can be addressed...
Whilst command and control systems (C&C) have traditionally been targeted at managing the emergency call handling process, the need for collaboration and interoperability has led to the understanding that C&C systems can not view their operational world in isolation. They need to share information both with other internal systems (to streamline workflow) and with external organisations to support a wider, regional and national, operational picture. Data should only be entered once at the point of call and disseminated automatically to other related systems and partner agencies. Furthermore, automatic electronic links between partner agencies within any given area to share resources and incident data are required to support the key drivers of the Civil Contingencies Act.
Looking closer at the impact the requirement for collaboration has on C&C systems, Sungard Vivista suggests that there are a number of elements, depending on the approach taken. The first is for organisations to work together to handle a joint workload, thus requiring larger systems; the second is to maintain separate systems but share information through interfaces. And in particular, the following factors are important:
Scalability – whether organisations combine their systems or share data through interfaces, there is a need to handle increased load
Performance – the load might be greater but users still demand and expect sub-second response times and so performance under load is critical
Reliability – as systems become bigger, or each system becomes dependent on others, the reliability of each becomes more significant because if any component fails then the overall impact is greater
Interoperability – clearly for organisations to collaborate they need to share data and hence standards for data exchange are important
Flexibility – in order for organisations to collaborate there is often an alignment of working practices and business processes and so command and control systems need to be flexible and configurable to adapt to different ways of working.
SunGard Command and Control has been developed with all these features built into the product from the outset. As the national solution under NSPIS, it scales to all force sizes up to the Metropolitan Police while delivering sub-second performance. It has proven reliability and is built on an architecture that facilitates interoperability through data standards, as demonstrated through its extensive range of interfaces. It has also been implemented in a range of organisations including the police, the Highways Agency (see page 6) and London Underground, which demonstrates its flexibility whereby it can be configured for different environments and working practices.
Emphasising how the need for collaboration is and will continue to have an impact upon C&C systems, Matthew White, Senior Geographic Information Specialist, Ordnance Survey states, “To join up and share services rather than duplicate them can only be achieved if the technology, including C&C systems is built on a foundation of high quality data and an integrated data infrastructure. OSMasterMap can assist with collaboration from the perspective of enabling the standardisation, simplification and sharing of data. Successful collaboration requires both technology and data interoperability. Collaboration will inevitably put pressure on C&C systems to deliver information to other services, which may not be familiar with the location or geographical context. This makes it ever more important to have command and control systems which utilise the most accurate and up-to-date geographic information to deliver joined up front-line emergency response.”
Dr. Mark Bentall Chief Technical Officer, EADS DCS & SDC adds, “The impact is visible from the systems that we are developing and certainly in the systems that we are implementing, and never more so from the front end user’s point of view. Protocols between C&C are becoming more intuitive and new systems are drawing on mission critical data from many reliable sources to provide the best practical solutions. Channels of communications between Police, Fire and Ambulance services are therefore strengthening to deliver an optimum service from the UK’s emergency infrastructure.”
Is cross-agency data sharing a reality?
Yet accepting that there is a requirement to collaborate, in practice there are many business drivers, financial, governance and cultural issues that stand in the way for true collaboration within the C&C environment. Shaun O’Neill, Manaton Consulting suggests that scenario planning, such as a major incident, and tracking how individual agencies would respond provides the necessary criteria and business process mapping of what needs to be achieved and the responses from respective services would thus be followed by the assessment of enabling technologies that meet individual agency requirements. “The Buncefield incident is a perfect example of the need for a joined up response.”
Commenting further, O’Neill said, “To a degree collaboration via C&C does exist, the Metropolitan Police and London Ambulance Service, for instance is a good example. A collaboration between the two enabled the development of a system, where messages can be sent through the control room for incident management and the issue of data protection was blocked out to ensure that each organisation’s aims were not compromised. The solution was business led and works between two separate CAD suppliers. Through the success of the collaboration, there are plans to widen the application to incorporate other agencies.”
David Lawford, APD, agrees, “The technology is definitely available to achieve electronic transfer of incident data via the C&C systems. The driver is the business process and emergency service agencies should articulate their requirements to suppliers.”
Lawford firmly believes that C&C solution suppliers should offer the ability to interface with one another as standard, in the same vein that the Airwave radio communication solution has been adopted with an open standard for terminals, the same should apply to equipment within the control room.
Bob Jones, Sungard Vivista agrees, “We are seeing collaboration with radio communication, think what could be achieved if we collaborate fully with C&C - the ability to dynamically share incident data and information through common standards would enhance productivity and incident responses.”
Jones also pointed out that a relative newcomer to the C&C arena, in guise of the Highways Agency, has already recognised the benefits of collaborating with partner agencies and is currently rolling out a solution to seven police forces across England. “Through an xml interface, which we designed in co-operation with the Highways Agency, incident logs are electronically exported to either the local police force or Highways Agency (dependent upon who received the 999 call) to improve the efficiency of responding to incidents on the roads.”
Through this programme, four different C&C systems are all cross communicating (Steria, Integraph, Northgate, Thales and Sungard Vivista) highlighting exactly what can be achieved. “Moreover, it underlines that the technology is available, it is the funding, misalignment of ministers, current business processes and cultural issues that are currently stopping the nation and agency wide use of such collaboration.”
We should also consider that in five years time, the Olympic Games will come to London. Although centred on London, events will be held at many venues around the UK: the need to share information, process large volumes of data, and provide a unified response to any situation that might arise is abundantly clear.
