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A Commanding Control
Dawn Read explores the future of the command and control systems..
The command and control system is the hub of call taking and dispatching. Technology that is available today is helping the process become even more efficient and with recent and future innovations systems are becoming ever more tactical.
What,in your opinion, are the latest technical innovations within command and control systems?
Dave Barry, Business Development Manager, Motorola
One of the biggest innovations is the proliferation in the use of spatial information which improves the response to emergency incidents in several ways. The location information available form vehicle and personal radios, such as the Motorola MTM800 and MTH800, enables command and control systems to identify where the available resources are located.This also has the benefit of locating an officer that requires assistance in an emergency.
Spatial information about an incident enables emergency responders to accurately locate it on a digital map and attend incidents in the optimum time.
Spatial information about surrounding risks allows operators to display what other hazards the emergency services are likely to face when they arrive at the scene. For instance, spatial information about hydrants allows commanders to see the closest hydrants together with their size and current availability.
Another innovation is the emerging highspeed wireless connection available to firefighters and police officers, providing two way information between individual officers or fire fighters and their commanders. In addition to the voice connection, individuals are able to send and receive real-time video, vital signs and even their location within buildings.This valuable information can be available to Incident Commanders, Control Centres and Gold Control for Major incidents.
Rowland Monk, SunGard Vivista, Product Manager, NSPIS C&C
The latest innovations are:
. The close integration of the Command and Control system with the communications Control System allowing the seamless operation of the two systems on a single platform within the control room.
. The advances in location technology providing significantlygreater provision and accuracy of resource locations, both vehicle and foot patrols,with associated enhancements for controlling the display and the rate of information flow.
. The greatly increased access to mobile data from a wider range of systems to the full range of mobile devices, vehicle mounted and hand-held.
Actions can be performed within the operator’s active screen and executed by the system which has primary control.This means that Command and Control systems can make both point-to-point and group calls to officers, as well as send and receive data. They can also synchronise the presentation of resource information on the Integrated Communications Control System (ICCS). Similarly, at the point of taking a call on the ICCS,the operator can access associated
Command and Control data for display, and reference it during the call.
Duncan Gerrard, Director of Sales International, APD Communications
Two main developments are both crossing over between the operational/organizational use of technology and both featuring more intelligent and elegant use of technology. A result probably of the technology being more dependable and the users more focussed.
The coming together of the two main technologies within the 'Control Room' - The physical communications Control Systems, typically ICCS and the CAD systems (computerised incident handling) into one integrated system. Both depend on each other to be truly effective and both utilise the other main sub-systems such as radio and telephony. Again both in turn very much combine to provide the link to mobile information systems which is probably the major business benefit both in operational and value for money terms.
The other is really how organisations are beginning to tap into the benefits of meaningful location information both personal and vehicle and making that information available to all relevant systems and personnel.
Clive Percival, Business Development Manager,Fortek Computers Ltd
The development of command and control systems has been driven by the need to make call taking and dispatching processes happen more quickly in order to drive down response times.This will also satisfy political imperatives to maintain the confidence of the general public in the effectiveness of their emergency services. Speed of response has been the priority.
In order to achieve this command and control systems have developed features and interfaces designed to speed up the dispatch process, such as geographical information systems and automatic vehicle location. Nevertheless the basic task has remained the same; to respond to a call by dispatching resources to the scene as quickly as possible. The latest technical innovations have taken this process further and now allow a degree of incident management through improved flows of information. The integration of voice and data communications within the command and control management system allows faster reaction to events and improved interaction between the operator and the caller. Added to this the increasing use of internet/intranet technology with browser interfaces allows enterprise wide access to real time information on the progress of a situation if it should escalate. In addition the extension of data terminals into the field, both in vehicles and in the hands of personnel at the scene using public service wireless networks brings the immediate situation to the desktop of anyone who has an interest in events as they unfold. Hand in hand with active incident management goes the need to maintain an accurate log of all events and timings both to ensure compliance with business policy and for later analysis in order to develop more effective action plans for the future. The advent of the modern command and control system has automated this vital function and put its accuracy beyond the reach of human error.
The implementation of these new technologies has confirmed the Control Room as the hub of an enterprise’s activity through which information flows which is important not only to the dispatch of resources but to all the activities of the organisation.
Bruno Brunskill, security specialist, Anite PublicSector
The major technical innovations for emergency service control rooms are to be able to use their tactical command and control systems:
. on the move in vehicles and on foot;
._ in ever closer conjunction with geographic information system (GIS interfaces)
Graham Roberts,Business Development Manager,Stratus Command & Control systems such as Stratus’ Vantage product should be and often are the lynchpin of every Force in the country. Whereas the focus of use of a Command & Control system used to be quick logging of emergency calls and managing the effective resourcing of resultant incidents, their scope has taken on new dimensions over the last couple of years. One of the keys to this has been the national roll-out of Airwave (digital radio) technologies. This has given the opportunity for Command & Control systems to become the main communications hub for operational policing. Not only do officers benefit from using digital quality sound and communicating securely –thieves can’t listen to the police radio channel anymore – the "free" Airwave bandwidth has enabled IT integration which benefits both the patrolling officer and the Force. Some Forces have also taken advantage of common integration technologies such as XML protocols to tightly knit other key system such as Crime and Intelligence. here is a growing trend to "front-end" the Command & Control system with specialist Call Handling tools such as Vantage DCM which allow Forces more control over how they manage the call so that customers receive the service they deserve (and increasingly expect) whilst allowing the police to make sure that all the relevant information is captured at the first point of contact. It is no longer adequate to give call handlers a FAQ database to assist in queries; information should be automatically prompted to the call handlers are part of the business process and workflow.
Brian Hall, Business Development Manager, Command & Control, Steria,
The latest innovations in Command and Control specifically in the Police arena are twofold, one technological, and one a business driver.The latest technological innovation stems from the rollout of the Airwave digital radio network, which is just in the final stages of implementation in Scottish police forces. The first generation of digital radios enabled personnel to provide status
updates via radio on arrival or leaving a scene - this replaced a great deal of voice traffic.
Today's radios are increasingly GPS enabled, and therefore not only can transmit messages, but can pinpoint the position of personnel, otherwise known as ARL (Automatic Resource Location). This advance means that there is still less voice traffic to be processed. What does this mean for the Emergency Services? fundamentally, it means that less time is spent processing individual voice transmissions, and dispatching staff are freed up to decide how to address incidents, better serve the citizen and mobilise resources most effectively.
More and more police forces are moving towards this method of working, to help them make the best of their investment in Airwave technology.
The most recent advance from a business point of view is the release of the home Office's National Call Handling Standards, advocating the standardisation of how calls from the public are dealt with. This has the potential to permanently alter the historical Technology can deliver split between emergency and non-emergency calls in favour of a more centralised contact management approach that could see activity naturally divided between inbound calls to call handlers and decisions to deploy staff and resources allocated to dedicated dispatchers.
Sue Pivetta, President, Professional Pride, Inc
The technical innovations can achieve nothing without the humans who operate them. The efficiency and abilities of the call receiver and dispatcher are often overlooked when new technology is introduced. A new CAD system or touch screen awaits the operator, who may or may not have the skills, knowledge and attitude necessary to use the technology to capacity. The latest innovation in my estimation is a training simulator – new to training in this field - not new in law
enforcement or fire science.
How important are these to the future
of the control room?
Dave Barry, Business Development Manager, Motorola
In future, as control centres are covering larger and larger areas, spatial information will be essential, as operators will be expected to respond to locations they are unfamiliar with, possibly in another part of the country. It will be essential that an operator has all of the information necessary to respond to incidents anywhere.
As emergency services are responding to ever larger incidents, the high speed wireless connection outside and inside buildings will bring major benefits where large numbers of officers are deployed.
Rowland Monk, SunGard Vivista, Product Manager, NSPIS C&C
These features are of paramount importance and, in the long term, will lead to a significant change of emphasis in control room operations. The range and amount of data that Command and Control systems will exchange electronically with other local and external agency systems and also with patrol officers and remote devices will increase significantly. This will lead to control room systems
combining to provide greater operational efficiencies for the management of and access to data and allowing the delivery of best service to the community.
Duncan Gerrard, Director of Sales International, APD Communications
If organisations really desire progress and increased efficiency/effectiveness linked with demonstrable better value for money then they have to work smarter, quicker and deliver. There is no excuse for either not doing, or doing badly what can be sensibly and clearly delivered by the above. Technology can deliver improvements dependably and reliably, people have to decide how best to harness that technology.
CONTROL
Bruno Brunskill, security specialist, Anite PublicSector
These two developments are significant because they can provide incident team leaders with closer control of their resources, more effective use of the resources and improve the safety of the responders. These systems provide the control rooms with a much improved and more realistic picture of the incident.
Graham Roberts, Business Development Manager, Stratus
It is all about efficient, effective and safe methods of working. I can give some simple examples: Officers can log-in to Vantage from their handsets without wasting time coming into a police station. This means that Vantage can simultaneously register their on-duty status with the Duty Management application which allows the Force to manage and control resourcing and authorisation of overtime, and enables compliance with legislation e.g. European working Time Directive. Officers can press the Emergency Status button on their handsets and be secure in the knowledge that the their position will be alerted to control room staff on the control room displays – most handsets being deployed today are fitted with GPS chips that report on the officer’s position (and speed & direction of travel if in a car). Incidents can be allocated to the officer while he is still out on the beat. He/she can directly update the command andA D control log without having to wait to speak to a member of the control room staff. They can query information from the Command & Control system to get information on the latest situation as they are en route to the scene – having this real-time feed, so that information captured by a call taker in the control room is immediately seen by the officer attending has significant safety ramifications both for the police and the public and increases the chance of apprehending the offender. Crime numbers can be instantly assigned and given to a customer and details can be automatically retrieved on a repeat call either by customer name, telephone number, the crime reference or the incident reference. It is all part of allowing the police to be more professional and effective.The technologies deployed in the control room have the potential (and indeed should) empower the police to introduce more proactive, intelligence-led policing measures rather than being reactive to situations once they have occurred.
Brian Hall, Business Development Manager, Command & Control, Steria,
These advances are key to the future of the control room, increasing personnel safety and people management - GPS technology can locate personnel even if they are unable to check in for a number of hours. The newest guidelines on call handling will no doubt shape the way next generation command and control systems are structured, seeing more Services take a contact centre approach with more widespread use of CRM systems and citizen relationship management for efficient,personal customer service.
Sue Pivetta, President, Professional Pride, Inc
Adult learning theory says to learn one must practice. The only way to practice handling an emergency is to sit down and simulate. The equipment and the technology is not thedifficult part of working in emergencies. Mostly technology is designed to be easy to operate - however - when a call taker of dispatcher is inside their head working with a hysterical mother - operating the equipment should be the auto pilot part whereas the judgement, critical thinking, control, assessment and decisions are ever changing components of a successful response. We may call that the inside work - that can only be learned through simulation or allowing the trainee to experience the process of encountering situations and making decisions while operating equipment.But again,the equipment or technology isn't the difficult part.
What are the key requirements emergency services and public safety
agencies should look to when upgrading or installing new systems?
Dave Barry, Business Development Manager, Motorola
Ironically, it is the information within a Customer organisation that is the most valuable aid to successful and effective response to incidents. When buying a new system, a public safety agency must fully understand what information any new system will require to operate effectively and check that the information is available. Conversely, a customer needs to ensure that any new system will make full use of their precious operational information held within their organisation.
Rowland Monk, SunGard Vivista, Product Manager, NSPIS C&C
Reliability and performance. No amount of functionality will compensate for an unreliable and underperforming system. The customer must have complete confidence that the system will comprehensively and consistently integrate with other local systems and other agencies and have the flexibility to be easily and readily extended.
Duncan Gerrard, Director of Sales International, APD Communications
Not to get locked into a technology stream that either through cost or suitably prohibits taking advantage of all relevant systems from many different suppliers and providers.
Clive Percival, Business Development Manager, Fortek Computers Ltd
First of all they need to clearly define their operational requirement and, in doing so, they must consider all the peripheral applications, databases, functions and activities with which control will need to interact. Due to the enterprise wide nature of the information flows through the modern command and control system it must now be considered and specified as part of the overall ICT strategy of the organisation. The solution must employ a truly service oriented architecture which permits the processing of data between current systems and allows for the introduction of future systems yet to be specified. Integration of voice and data
communications with the main system will produce an ergonomically more efficient solution with all information, call activity and dispatch actions concentrated on a single screen. It also enables the establishment of a full audit trail of communications activity in the main system log.
Graham Roberts, Business Development Manager, Stratus
Functionality, standards and interoperability are all givens today, or should be.
Flexibility and speed of response from their supplier may not. Most police Forces today operate in broadly similar ways, but all Forces have key differences which means that one size does not fit all. This is particularly the case in areas where innovation, understanding of the organisation’s requirements, and technology integration is key to the delivery of the planned business benefits. Especially today, the police need a supplier as a partner in ensuring the Force gets the system it needs when it needs it. Stratus takes considerable time and effort in consulting with our customers and taking their feedback and implementing solutions based on the priorities they set.A lot of suppliers talk bout “partnership" with clients; we really live that value.
Brian Hall, Business Development Manager, Command & Control, Steria,
All should bear in mind the Home Office guidelines on National Call Handling in terms of how best to shape the customer experience.
Sue Pivetta, President, Professional Pride, Inc
Training, training and more training until the new upgrade or system become automatic so that it does not interfere with the real work of making decisions, talking to the units or the caller, taking action and so forth. When watching a skilled veteran telecommunicator approach new technology you can see that
their attention become focused on the operation of the technology and not on the
call - where it should be. Technology should not interfere with the promise to send the right units to the proper location with the most information as quickly as possible.
What, in your opinion, does the future hold for today's command and control system?
Dave Barry, Business Development Manager, Motorola
The future of Command and Control lies seamless mobility of information. The control room teams need rapid access to all information that will assist the responders. The front-line responders, command teams and control centres will act as a single team, all seamlessly connected by high speed data paths able to pass voice, text, pictures and video.
Rowland Monk, SunGard Vivista, Product Manager, NSPIS C&C
The future is integration. Today’s C&C systems interface with other data systems local to the service or agency. In the future C&C systems will inter-operate with other control room facilities to provide a complete control room system, and will interface with other services and agencies to allow a precisely coordinated regional or nationwide response.
Duncan Gerrard, Director of Sales International, APD Communications
They will blur into single sourced systems with the delimitations and differences disappearing. CAD will become ICCS and ICCS will become CAD,and that single system will also offer call handling/routing.
Clive Percival, Business Development Manager, Fortek Computers Ltd
Further integration of communications systems such as Airwave, SMS text and
wireless data will continue to concentrate information at the point of the operator’s screen and to these will be added video streaming as networks get faster and bandwidth becomes less of an issue for IT departments.
The Control Room has ceased to be solely an emergency call taking and
resource dispatch centre. Its function is already changing and will continue to do so to one of public service communications centre with the initiation of predefined plans and procedures to deal with many and varied situations. Only some of these will be emergencies, some not, some small and some escalating to national prominence.
Information will flow into and through the control room which will be employed in the making of strategic decisions elsewhere in the organisation.It will become an information clearing house and this will create the opportunity for the control room to make a greater contribution to the running of the entire enterprise. The key to all this is the integration of voice and data communications with interactive information display and, in the same way that improved communications and data analysis have enabled the remote control of tactical military operations in remote theatres, similar control will be exercised over tactical responses to security incidents in the civil community.
Bruno Brunskill, security specialist, Anite Public Sector
The future, however, demands a more holistic approach to incident management.
Control rooms are increasingly effective at tactical management of single service response but the emergency services no longer act on their own or just in a small working relationship with each other. Today’s major incidents require the close coordination and integrated operation of the three emergency services with local
authorities, environmental bodies, trauma response organisations and utilities to name just a few. Most of the latter do not have the same capabilities or facilities for tactical command and control as well as markedly different working practices and cultures. A mere extension of the existing tactical information systems will not suffice to embrace these more diverse organisations, however good these systems are. An overarching capability to exchange information, Gold command strategic decisions, Silver command multi-agency tactical issues and situational information delivery is the next essential technical development. This capability was recognized in 2002 by the Surrey emergency services as a result of foot and mouth and the fuel crisis in particular. The more recent experiences of Boscastle as well as the terrorism outrages in London have reinforced the need for this
capability.
The Civil Contingencies Act also highlights the need to inform and warn the public. Best practices now go further because it is recognised that the public can help themselves if they are well informed and can help each other in some situations with less direct involvement of the emergency services.
Steve Hunt, President, 4A International, LLC
The future of the control room will follow one of two paths. The room will be filled with more technology to do things the old-fashioned way (a computer that calls the bobbie for you); or more technology to do things more efficiently and effectively (a computer that analyses threats and proposes optimal response). For the command centre to deliver value, clearly it must meet the security and safety needs of the organisation, while limiting cost. That points to better software and better processes – not merely more camera. Streamlining command centre processes, and leveraging the existing information technology network and best practices will deliver real value to an organisation.
Graham Roberts, Business Development Manager, Stratus
More integration with more systems and technologies, delivering more services to the public and internally within a Force and between Forces.
Sharing data and intelligence and making that available in real-time to call takers and dispatchers so that life and death decisions can be taken based on better quality information will be a continuing challenge.
Providing extra information has the potential for making officers better informed and therefore better able to respond correctly to all the incidents that they have
to deal with, but this information will have to be controlled more efficiently than it is at present. There is a danger that real information is lost in a deluge of mere data.
Brian Hall, Business Development Manager, Command & Control, Steria,
The future of the Command and Control system is bound up in the future of contact management - the front ROL
CCS (integrated communications control system) supplied by
Intergraph, to move from three single Airwave-ready command and
The move will increase the overall number of NWP control room
end of communications with the public will most likely take a more customer service oriented approach, receiving calls and then routing them to the most appropriate handler, or answering at the first point of contact. CRM systems will further support this approach, personalising and adding value to the customer experience. If the split were to evolve between call handling and despatch, the control room will naturally evolve to become a despatch centre, and the front line will contain customer service agents with a breadth of knowledge and trained in call routing and first contact resolution of customer queries.
Sue Pivetta, President, Professional Pride, Inc
Technology will increase and the focus on technology too as this is designed to make the work easier, faster, better controlled. The future of training must hold a promise to remember the human component of technology and we must be ever watchful for improved adult learning and training techniques. We must believe that the human innovation also extends to understanding how we learn - and offers new techniques that may compliment the technology we so love to chase.
How do you envisage the control room will alter?
Dave Barry, Business Development Manager, Motorola
The future control rooms will not only be a centre of communications but also a valuable source of incident and response data for analysis to help predict and prevent incidents. With accurate incident patterns, the fire service in fact will attend the incident before it happens and advise and educate potential victims of fire before they need to call for emergency intervention.
In addition to being the interface a centre of operational communications, the future control rooms will provide a valuable source of incident and response data for analysis to help predict and prevent emergency incidents.
To quote CFO Frank Sheehan of the West Midlands, speaking at the recent IFE conference "How quickly would you like the Brigade to respond to you?... 8 minutes?... 3 minutes?...How about the day before you have to call 999 ?" A sound concept and a one that the modern command and control systems will help to achieve.With accurately recorded incident patterns, the fire service will be able to attend potential incidents before they happen, to provide preventative advice to potential victims of fire before they need to call for emergency intervention.
Rowland Monk, SunGard Vivista, Product Manager, NSPIS C&C
Business processes will evolve to focus on the coordination of information and intelligence from the integrated systems. The control room systems will, in the operator’s current context of activity, be able to automatically present information which the operator can interpret and filter for provision to the front-line resources. To support this, SunGard Vivista anticipates that control room systems will evolve into a single Command, Control and Communication (C3) system delivering all the necessary control room data and voice services through a single, unified interface.
Duncan Gerrard, Director of Sales International, APD Communications
If the delivery of technology is done properly, a lot of what people do (and many times do not do now) will be done automatically. For instance location information will be linked to intelligence providing the base for ambient information which will offer information to the right people at the right time. That same location information will feed other systems for targeted patrols, resource availability, duty planning, crime analysis etc. CAD linked to radio and location systems can predictably recommend deployment without operator intervention.These are just a few examples of how personnel within the rooms will be relieved of many of the quite admin, repetitive tasks and can concentrate on other really important tasks such as officer safety, intelligent and intuitive deployment and planning - things they would like to do now, but just do not have the time.
Bruno Brunskill, security specialist, Anite Public Sector
The control rooms of the future will have to change in order to take fuller account of:
. passing information to and receiving it from
their partner organisations;
. giving information to the public and listening for important information from the public.
Sue Pivetta, President, Professional Pride, Inc
With simulation and improved training I would envision quicker recognition of people who do not fit the work and improved ability to do the work with less stress and negativity.
R E V I E W I N G C O M M A N D A N D
C O N T R O L
Nick Chorley of Intergraph assesses the impact that emerging command and control technologies will have on public safety operations in the post 7/7 world
Given the mounting pressure on event response, location technologies are becoming a key driver for command and control. For example in the UK most police radios will soon have GPS devices, which coupled with Airwave and a digital map-based command and control system will allow the control room to track all field resources to an unprecedented level. This is good news both for command and for field personnel. In the case of a major event (football crowd
control, riot, terrorist attack) individual police officers can be identified, deployed – and then tracked by the control room, on-screen. Much has already been written about Airwave, but it is worth stressing that – provided one has the right interface to command and control – the technology does provide unprecedented
access to data for mobile personnel. For the first time it is now possible to extend the power of a full command and control plus records management system into the field, using wireless technology to put information and interaction with the control room literally in the hand of every field officer. Computers in the boot of public safety vehicles can be connected via a highspeed modem to command and control and records management data, making many of the facilities of the control room available to officers - remotely. They use the same on-screen, intelligent map-based displays as control, as well as having direct access to national and local police database information. Dockable in-vehicle computers provide truly ‘mobile data’, allowing officers to access the information they need, make enquiries and interact with control – while walking around at an incident.
Hand-held PDAs give mobile officers many of the same facilities as the vehicle-linked, portable
pocket PC solution, including on-screen access to the latest incident schedule and information, and the facility to add their own text to incident information.They can receive and send text messages and make enquiries, with access to database information: interfacing with the command and control system as well as with their own records management system.
Meanwhile, in the control room itself,ACD systems for automatic call distribution – using the data with in command and control incident logs to intelligently route calls to the right people – is becoming a critical technology, delivering time- saving, service-enhancement, response acceleration and other measurable benefits. This technology is particularly relevant when command and control has been set up along call centre lines, with the objective to improve service to the public by handling both non-emergency and fast-time response with speed and sophistication.We will begin to see some non-emergency response being handled by CRM (customer relationship management) type systems, linked in turn to the systems of other
organisations such as local authority departments and the Highways Agency.
The requirement for national and regional response has led to the emerging protocol that enables communication between multiple command and control systems, for interoperability.
The recent 7/7 and G8 combined, multiple-force operations have underlined the need for this.
Soon,different police force systems will be able to exchange and view each others’ incident information.
Soon,we will also see solutions that provide a higher level, regional and national,integrated view of disparate and localised operations,with the ability to also drill down for more detailed
event information.As an example,take this scenario: are the bomb threats or terrorist attacks being reported from around the country a series of ‘random’ incidents,or part of a coordinated, national operation?This emerging technology I have described will help senior, authorised personnel to form a view.
