Control rooms
Changing with the times
Peter Prater, managing
Sam Fenwick hears from a number of control room solution providers regarding the
challenges facing the sector and the ways in which modern systems are alleviating
some traditional headaches
director of Hexagon Safety
& Infrastructure and the
founder and chair of the
International Critical
Control Rooms Alliance (ICCRA), says
we are in an unusually busy period of
technology disruption, “with advances
in many areas being drawn together for
new third-generation command and
control solutions”.
He adds that typically after a
lot of technology is harnessed and
implemented by industry, “there’s a
hiatus for a few years while those bed
down and then new advances mature
to the degree they can be introduced to
critical control solutions – that’s kind
of where we are now”.
One of the biggest factors is the
changing expectations of control
room operators, citizens and other
stakeholders – “that’s why we’re having
to adopt new technologies faster and
faster – it’s to try to keep pace with
the changes taking place within the
mobile phones in our pockets”.
Mike Isherwood, APD
Communications managing director,
a person they had argued with on
Facebook. Similarly, he highlights the
rise in queries from people who have
been hacked or suered online fraud.
“Technology-based crime is also on
the increase and that requires a whole
dierent set of reporting mechanisms
and data to be sent through, as
opposed to just traditionally making
the call about a particular issue that
someone has had or has seen.”
Isherwood notes that control rooms
will need to cater for young people
and their preferred communication
methods. He also cites the growing
adoption of smart home devices,
CCTV, connected burglar alarms and
similar devices – “by 2021, those kinds
of devices will outnumber smartphones
and those kinds of technologies will
be reporting things, not necessarily
directly to the emergency services, but
certainly via third parties”.
ere has also been a shift in how
people call control rooms. In the UK,
Isherwood says 101 non-emergency
calls now account for up to 70 per cent
of demand, and often the callers have
to be advised to contact other agencies.
highlights the fact that non-verbal
forms of communication (such as
email, texts and web forms) now
account for a signicant percentage of
the interactions between control rooms
and the public. While live web chat
accounts for only a small percentage,
“over the next three to four years it
will become more prevalent, email will
slow down and contact via Twitter and
Facebook will remain relatively steady”.
He adds that this trend is driving
an increase in the demands on control
rooms, as people who would never
contact one over the phone are now
doing so by other means, though
Isherwood also notes that as these
additional queries are often not timecritical,
they can be easier to manage –
“no-one is going to send you a message
to say that their house is on re, they’re
going to call”.
While these new kinds of
interactions are underpinned by
technology, Isherwood says it can also
be part of the problem. For example,
while visiting a control room he
witnessed a call from someone who
had been physically assaulted by
January 2019 @CritCommsToday 17
Adobe Stock/Rogatnev
Public safety
organisations have
been merging
control rooms
– for example,
North West Fire
Control (pictured)
handles reghter
and re engine
mobilisation
for four partner
re and rescue
services – but
sometimes the
reverse occurs