Motorola Solutions is stepping up efforts to shape the concept of the command centre around consolidating a raft of crucial yet disparate data sources and integrating them in a meaningful way to benefit public safety organisations.
According to Motorola Solutions Software Business VP and GM Andrew Sinclair, public safety work is becoming increasingly challenging, with emergency services facing a combination of more complex threats, constrained resources and much higher community expectations.
“In this environment, a multitude of data sources can be ingested in control rooms that can help command centre workers and first responders to work more efficiently,” Sinclair told Telecom Times. “Those data sources come from a variety of places, historical records, social media and video including CCTV footage, to name a few.”
“Therefore, we see a role for multiple parties to contribute to building the capabilities needed for control rooms of the future, helping to consolidate all of those disparate data sources and integrate them in a meaningful way,” Sinclair said, adding that in many command centres workers operate across disparate systems that do not always integrate well together.
“These workers quite literally have to transcribe information from multiple systems, screens and keyboards, often using pen and paper to write things down,” he said. “In a dynamic public safety environment this can contribute to a loss in time and accuracy that potentially puts lives and property at risk.”
Sinclair said this organisational tension had driven Motorola Solutions to build an integrated suite of products, designed to work seamlessly together to help control room workers overcome these challenges.
‘To realise this goal we are fully supportive of an open and flexible environment that introduces more data sources to support public safety agencies with their daily work,” he said.
Sinclair also touched upon how emerging technologies might impact public safety going forward.
“Without question, technology will fundamentally transform public safety. Today we are starting to combine and integrate a variety of voice, records and data sources for emergency services, while the use of video, video analytics and IOT are far from reaching their full potential,” he said.
“When you add layers of AI, machine learning and IOT to that, you understand that innovation [still] has a long way to run. Importantly, all of these themes are transferable from public safety to enterprise environments,” Sinclair continued.
A key example was, he said, the difference these technologies could make to Australia’s minerals and energy sector. “Advanced software solutions used on a mine site can help to keep workers safe and connected to their colleagues working in control rooms who could be based anywhere in the world.”
“New and emerging technologies can deliver improved outcomes with the mutual benefits of increased safety and enhanced productivity,” said Sinclair.
