Verint’s Eran Wachman discusses how technological advancements and the proliferation of smart devices are creating a better environment for situational awareness.
There was a time when people would leave their homes and be completely disconnected. A time when talking or sending text messages, data, video, and images on a mobile device was something that was a thing of the future and only existed on the big screen. But just as styles have evolved over the years, so too has technology. Technology, as we know it today, is faster, smarter, smaller, and easier.
Today, social media has taken over how we communicate with one another. It is now socially acceptable to share images, video, and details about our daily events with virtually anyone who “follows” us. This has become an era of over-sharing and everyone has the opportunity to use social media to report on what’s happening around them. According to Statista, it is estimated that there will be approximately 2.1 billion social network users globally. While a small percentage of individuals choose to shun social media, an even greater percentage have embraced it and use it as a means to connect, network, and gather important information.
Information sharing where it counts
With the growing population of smartphone users, there is an abundance of information that can be collected and shared on a daily basis. Citizens today can correspond with not only one another, but with public safety officials as well. Through systems such as NG9-1-1, a public emergency communications service in the U.S. and Canada, the public is able to share digital information through the emergency network on to emergency responders. There is nearly no limit to what can be shared and a growing number of officials are realizing the benefits of including citizens in their public safety initiatives. One of the best ways to do this is through “crowdsourcing.”
Crowdsourcing is the act of engaging and enabling citizens to help public safety professionals address daily hazards and suspicious activities, natural disasters, terror attacks, crime, or vandalism by reporting information using their smartphones. Many initiatives allow citizens to submit such incidents anonymously using a tablet, smartphone, laptop, or desktop computer.
Public safety officials can help to create an increased level of citizen engagement by putting public safety in the hands of citizens. By leveraging these “eyes on the street,” police departments are able to improve situational awareness and incident response. Cities and public safety officials around the world are beginning to embrace crowdsourcing initiatives. More and more, we are seeing new initiatives being implemented in the form of “see something, say something” campaigns, Amber Alert tips, post-incident evidence gathering, and more. Crowdsourcing is also an effective way for individuals to protect themselves. For example, in an incident where several people simultaneously report that an event is getting out of hand, police are able collect extremely important evidence, such as images and video, to help them respond quickly and more effectively based on the information they receive from those attending and reporting details as they happen.
In emergency situations every second is critical to not only the individuals impacted by the incident, but to dispatchers and responders as well. When an incident occurs, dispatchers are, essentially, the first line of communication for those calling in.
It is critical that dispatchers gather all of the necessary information to get the first responder to the correct location fully informed and equipped to respond efficiently and effectively. Information sharing through mobile devices provides responders with real-time data and insight into the situation prior to stepping onto the scene.
Lines of communication between dispatchers and responders are open and allow both parties to easily share information across multiple agencies, which allows responders to better manage and respond to situations as they occur. Bi-directional communication with the field and live streaming of video or images provided by citizens through crowdsourcing, help responders to gain a more comprehensive picture of what is happening, which can help to speed up the decision-making process on how best to respond to the situation. By incorporating emergency dispatch into the overall situational awareness architecture, emergency response times can be dramatically reduced.
Innovations in situational awareness
Given the large amounts of data flooding in from various sources at any given moment, first responders and dispatchers must be positioned to move quickly and knowledgeably when emergency situations arise. A unified platform can help make sense of the incoming information and determine the necessary resources, availability and proximity of resources, as well as the skill level needed to handle the incident. New technologies and situational awareness platforms can also be connected with city-wide surveillance cameras to create a new level of situational awareness, and allow public safety officials to manage information and facilitate an accurate and timely response in the event of an incident.
Situational management technologies and techniques are laying the foundation for crowdsourcing campaigns. The command-and-control centers of today allow public safety officials to gather data from the public via social media sites, anonymous tips, and even special public safety apps that enable real-time event reporting and live video streaming. The information fed to the command center has the capability of identifying where the exact location of the event, gathering the appropriate resources located in the field and what equipment they need to appropriately respond, and the emergency responders’ proximity to the incident and their estimated time of arrival based on their mobile device. Combining citizen reports with incoming data from other systems, such as video surveillance, video analytics, traffic monitoring, and weather reports, allows officials to have a better understanding of the incident that is occurring, as well as trends that may develop over a period of time.
Open lines of communication and information sharing allow people to work together breaking down walls between geographic borders, departments, and organizations. As more cities around the world continue to embrace technology and social media, citizens and public safety officials will be able to work together to help keep their cities safe and their citizens protected.