Kathy Gibson reports from Huawei Safe Cities Summit in Nairobi – Recent events can teach us massive lessons about public safety.
Peter Goulding, independent public safety consultant, points out that solutions largely lie in the ability to access and process realtime intelligence.
While this is enabled by technological advances, thea need for better interoperability is largely driven by the fact that public expectations today are much higher than before.
“So we are not reacting to things; we have to be proactive.”
People take on new technology, Goulding says – but they need to change the way they work or it won’t be effective. “Technology gives us the opportunity to change and do things differently.”
Goulding cites the example of two police officers shot in New York City last year. The New York police had actually received a warning about the gunman from the Baltimore police – but is had been sent by fax, so it was overlooked.
Public safety doesn’t just include crime handling. Natural disasters and natural incidents have to be managed as well – and they are not short-lived situations, but carry on for days or weeks.
“That’s where technology can help ease the burden,” Goulding says.
Technology is also providing realtime intelligence as victims or bystanders take to social media – but are emergency services prepared to monitor and use this information? Goulding asks.
The emergency operations centre, or control room, is where this has to happen. And when there are big events they can’t disrupt the day to day operations.
This means cities need to set a strategy, put tactics in place, and operational teams will make sure it happens.
“All of this has to work as one single command team, in your EOC.”
One powers and policy are set, a variety of tactical options comes into plat, implementation is carried out, new information and intelligence comes in and threat assessment can be modified.
“Technology can give you the capability to manage this quickly, smoothly and efficiently whatever you have to face. And you can start finding ways of using the technology to make your operations more efficient.”
Technology gives emergency services the ability to manage complex resource demands and needs, Goulding says.
For instance, in London, organising prisoner transport takes up valuable network traffic at the expense of more critical needs.
Speedy response can be enabled if the command centre is properly resourced and managed when major incidents happen.
He challenge, he says, is how demands are managed, how information is processed. “And technology can help with this.
“You need to map the workflow. You need to feed the right information to the right person, so they can make the right decisions at the right time.
“So when the crisis happens, you are ready.”
Social media has a role to play, not only for information after an event – but it could be spiking ahead of an incident as well.
“The power of social media gives citizens the power to get people to do things,” Goulding says.
But it also needs to be managed to stop the spread of unsubstantiated rumours.
Using realtime intelligence gives emergency services a picture of what is happening all the time. “It does this by using the data and putting it together.”
Goulding stresses that emergency services need to capture the data that is important – much of which is unstructured – and then pass it on to the right person who can use it.
The device and network have to work together to do this. The device enables intelligence dissemination – both incoming and outgoing – which the network allows for multimedia data integration, and communication.
Devices could include smartphones, and sensors, linked to crime and incident forecasting, which allows predictive tools to give officials an idea of where resources should be deployed.
By providing situational awareness, collaboration and streamlined procedures officials can be better informed – and provide a better service to citizens.