Start Talking

Not until the cataclysmic events of 9/11 did we truly know how essential it was to have tight, precise, coordinated emergency response among public safety agencies. From that horrific September day forward, the public safety community has felt a new sense of urgency to make its response to all kinds of incidents as effective as possible.

Clearly, in 9/11's aftermath, the Department of Homeland Security aggressively has worked to help with this effort via its own emergency response outreach efforts and with funding grants. But have we achieved an acceptable level of preparedness for unforeseen events such as a chemical explosion, school shooting, devastating natural disaster or something equally as large-scale? A close look at public safety communications technology in the United States reveals that some states are well prepared, while many other states still use technology that leaves them behind the curve.

For all municipalities to achieve optimal public safety interoperability — most likely in the form of a broadband wireless network — it will take time and money. And as public safety agencies see their budgets squeezed, coupled with dwindling resources, they need some workable options. After all, if public safety officials cannot seamlessly share information with one another should a major city or regional incident occur, the consequence will be loss of lives and property.

As the term is applied to public safety, interoperability basically allows first responders to talk to each other across agencies and jurisdictions using voice, data or video-on-demand, in real-time, when needed and authorized. To achieve optimal interoperability, it is essential that every responder agency have access to the same critical information.

There now are a few commercial software systems that enable different responders to talk to each other as they view incident details available to all of them.

BETTER PRE-INCIDENT DATA RETRIEVAL NEEDED

One such software program is in use at the Rockford (Illinois) Fire Department. Lt. Bill Hyde says he wanted to tie in his electronic pre-incident plans with the computer-aided dispatch system he was using. For 6 years, Hyde has been using the Fire Zone, a software program offered by the CAD Zone Inc., (http://www.cadzone.com) for pre-incident diagramming of building layouts. The Fire Zone was created specifically for the fire service and features a large library of pre-drawn symbols, plus a 3D Viewer.

“One of the things we wanted in software for our mobile pre-incident plans was, as our units are dispatched, an electronic information exchange from our CAD system to the fire trucks,” Hyde explains. “I wanted something that was automatically going to bring up preplans for where we were being dispatched.”

Hyde discovered that the CAD Zone offers a companion software program to its Fire Zone offering, called First Look Pro (FLP), which allows fire personnel to organize and locate pre-incident plan diagrams, maps and information.

“It allows us to get drawings in any format and automatically brings them up by interfacing with our dispatch system,” Hyde says. “Our responders are able to take time to look at the drawings, rather than just ride to the call and try to find the preplans.”

POLICE, FIRE SHARE SAME PRE-INCIDENT PLANS

Why is the Rockford Fire Department's experience with automating pre-incident planning relevant to interoperability? Chiefly because fire departments already have vital data on most of the buildings in their jurisdiction, making them best equipped to respond to incidents effectively. Therefore, they can share the information with other public safety responders.

It is the information sharing that is so crucial in the absence of a truly interoperable public safety network, and may be all that many municipalities can accomplish for now.

The mobile computer dispatch system installed in the Rockford Fire Department's fire apparatus is the same one used in the city's police patrol cars. Hyde closely worked with his counterpart at the police department to create a joint pre-incident planning system that allows fire and police to have the same information available to them.

“As soon as I saw that First Look Pro had both a fire and a police view (of pre-incident data) available, I realized the police could use this as well,” Hyde says. “We're essentially building a three-legged stool right now with police, fire and 9-1-1, and with FLP, we can all talk to each other and send files back and forth.”

The software includes tools for keeping preplans updated on all the department's computers. By using FLP's new synchronization tool, the user can modify pre-incident plans and synchronize those changes with all other computers on a network that are running FLP. This means that other first responders who receive the preplans and refer to them on mobile computers en route to an incident will have the most updated information.

LARGER CITIES MOVING TO INTEROPERABLE NETWORKS

Some of the larger public safety communities need a formal and wide-ranging interoperable solution. Fresno, Calif., for instance, decided to build an advanced public safety communications network to enhance interoperability and emergency response among several agencies within the city. The network was installed by Alcatel-Lucent and consists of an IP (internet protocol) multiservice platform, digital microwave transmission and network management capabilities that push converged data and voice traffic to several of Fresno's public safety agencies.

The new interoperable network now lets the city manage its sprawling public safety network from a single platform. Fresno's move to a full-scale network makes sense given its population of 500,000, making it the sixth-largest city in California.

According to John Mahrino, vice president of Americas Region Public Affairs for Alcatel-Lucent, “The big benefit (of interoperability networks like the one in Fresno) is that it's all IP. This allows them to interoperate with their legacy equipment, and to add applications that can work across many agencies and jurisdictions.”

Mahrino adds that Fresno's network, and others like it that Alcatel-Lucent installs, allows first responders to work and communicate with each other. Therefore, “the cost of upgrading this network will be much more economical,” Mahrino says.

DISPATCH CENTERS WANT TO GIVE DATA TO POLICE, FIRE, EMS

The word interoperability easily gets confused, since many public safety agencies tend to think of it somewhat one-dimensionally, such as using just two-way radio communications for incident response. “What we're really saying is that interoperability means being able to use data across platforms,” says Jason Trotter, sales manager for FIREHOUSE Software. Trotter said he sees a trend towards rising interest from public safety agencies in jointly having access to pre-incident planning information.