Facilitating Incident Response Through Situational Awareness
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The document discusses facilitating incident management response through improved situational awareness using multimedia technologies. It describes how situational awareness originally referred to a pilot's tactical awareness but now means comprehending observations through additional context. It argues that public safety systems need to integrate data in real-time to provide responders with a shared operational picture. A geospatial visualization of integrated information sources could help facilitate rapid decision making during incidents.
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Facilitating Incident Response Through Situational Awareness
- 1. Facilitating Incident Management Response Public Safety in a Multimedia Era Information Draft Jack Brown Jan 11, 2008
- 2. Situational Awareness When the first aircraft struck the World Trade Center, what were your thoughts? Did you think about terrorists? Or, was your first thought something more like “How could that happen?” The first crash left most people trying to figure out what human or mechanical error could have caused the crash. However, a little over 15 minutes later – and the instant Flight 175 came into view – we knew we were under attack. As the jet slammed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, our view changed and the response of police and fire personnel to the WTC and the other incidents changed. Our reaction changed because the additional information of the second aircraft altered our perception of the first crash. Our perceptions moved closer to reality because more data gave meaning to and enhanced our comprehension of what we were observing. Situational awareness “Situational awareness” was a term originally used to describe the tactical situation during aerial combat . While the literal term doesn’t go back as far as World War I, the idea surfaced then, when pilots first took to the sky in combat. At first, the term referred to the pilot’s ability to know where he was in relation to the enemy and the other pilots of his flight. In reality, that is only positional awareness. However, when pilots added their knowledge of aircraft capabilities and known battle tactics with positional awareness, they were able to interpret, comprehend and anticipate. The comprehension of observations is the essence of situational awareness.
- 3. Public Safety in a Multimedia Era Public safety agencies have made significant investments in CAD system, records- management systems, GIS, crisis information management, and facility preplan drawing and management systems. These are stand-alone systems and are incapable of easily sharing data with other programs. Their proliferation has created a series of data silos requiring service command or other response personnel to perform “swivel chair” integration, rolling back and forth between the user interfaces of several different systems or books to build a composite picture of the situation in their minds. The emergence of Internet standards for Web services and data integration now makes it possible to weave these systems together by providing the connections and data translations necessary to make each system's data understandable to the others. This establishes a true information-sharing environment in which various data sources can be brought together and woven into valuable information relevant to the incident being responded to. New capabilities such as video surveillance, fixed or mobile sensors, and plume modeling can be integrated easily in the future. Another benefit is that public safety personnel can focus on being decision-makers and not data-entry clerks.
- 4. Public Safety in a Multimedia Era Public safety agencies work in a dynamic, complex and high-risk environment that demands current and relevant situational awareness. Time is of the essence when faced with saving lives, property and the environment. There is no time to copy and send files, pictures, or diagrams. The best case is to have all relevant information updated in real time to keep pace with the unfolding incident or situation. Responders, incident commanders and emergency managers need to be able to view the situation and collaborate in real time to communicate what is happening at present. With the systems tied together and the information flowing in real time, what is needed next is to fuse the information together and present it in a visualization environment that can be quickly understood and manipulated.
- 5. Public Safety in a Multimedia Era Public safety and emergency management entities already operate in a geospatial environment: How do I get there? Where is the incident? Where is the fire? Where is the bad guy going? What and where are the exposures to this fire? Where is my water supply? Where are my resources? How does our coverage look for any other emergencies? Incident response organizations are used to dealing with maps and locations, and thus a geospatial picture makes a lot of sense as the primary visualization mechanism for incident data. With a map-based operating picture that is updated in real time, the information presented on that map can be adapted as appropriate to the roles and responsibilities of the individual responders. This will facilitate rapid comprehension and more effective decision-making for all disciplines that might be required.
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- 15. Communication Network Trends …..Extending the IP Network Edge • Network-based applications are increasingly important to transit operations More profitable, faster, safer operations is the goal • Advances in Wireless technologies Increased reliability, lower prices, better coverage 802.11a/b/g/n, UMTS, GPRS, CDMA, WiMAX, Satellite • Increased demand for Mobile Networking Real time access to information, increased productivity and lower costs, increased safety
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- 32. Appendix
- 37. Cisco IPICS The Cisco IPICS portfolio of products and applications provides Communications interoperability between push-to-talk (PTT) radio systems and devices such as mobile phones, IP phones, public switched telephone network (PSTN) phones, and PC clients. Based on IP standards, Cisco IPICS takes advantage of IP networks to extend the reach of traditional communications networks and also to provide notification using email, pager notification, and Short Message Service (SMS). Using Cisco IPICS, public sector agencies and enterprises can intelligently apply resources to streamline operations and rapidly respond to routine events as well as emergencies. Cisco IPICS can be deployed in mobile command vehicles and included in tactical communications kits, connecting to IP or non-IP wired, wireless, or satellite networks.
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- 40. Cisco IPICS Solutions components include the following: Cisco IPICS Server: The core foundation for the Cisco IPICS solution, the Cisco IPICS Server is a security-enhanced, Linux-based platform that provides an administration console and resource management and hosts the optional Cisco IPICS Policy Engine and Operational Views applications. Cisco IPICS IP Phone Client: The Cisco IPICS IP Phone Client enables personnel to use their Cisco Unified IP phones to collaborate with other personnel on PTT channels. Cisco IPICS PMC: The Cisco IPICS PMC is a Windows-based PC client software package that enables personnel to use their PCs to collaborate with other personnel on PTT channels. Cisco IPICS Operational Views: Cisco IPICS Operational Views allows different organizations to manage and share resources across ownership and organizational boundaries.
- 41. Cisco IPICS Cisco IPICS Policy Engine: The Cisco IPICS Policy Engine enables one-click activation of predefined policies for notification and talk-group establishment, and includes the ability to dial in and dial out to the PSTN. Intelligent Networking Cisco IPICS takes advantage of the Cisco Service-Oriented Network Architecture (SONA), an architectural framework that enables organizations to maximize the value of their network services and resources. The Cisco SONA framework makes it possible to centrally manage all radio systems, other voice systems, and data over a common, unified platform, increasing efficiency and the value of the agency’s network assets while lowering capital and management costs.
- 42. Cisco Unified Contact Center Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise uses an IP infrastructure to deliver skills- based contact routing, voice self-service, computer telephony integration (CTI), and multichannel contact management. By combining multichannel automatic-call- distributor (ACD) functions with IP telephony in a unified solution, Cisco Unified Contact Center helps deploy a distributed voice-over-IP (VoIP) contact center infrastructure. The Unified Contact Center segments customers, monitors resource availability, and delivers each contact to the appropriate resource anywhere in the enterprise. The software profiles each customer contact using related data such as dialed number and calling line ID, caller entered digits, data submitted on a Web form, and information obtained from a customer database lookup. Simultaneously, the system monitors the resources available in the contact center including agent skills and availability, interactive-voice-response (IVR) status, and queue lengths.
- 43. Cisco Unified Communications Manager Unified Communications Solutions unify voice, video, data, and mobile applications on fixed and mobile networks, delivering a media-rich collaboration experience across business, government agency, and institutional workspaces. These applications use the network as the platform to enhance comparative advantage by accelerating decision time and reducing transaction time. The security, resilience, and scalability of the network enable users in any workspace to connect anywhere, anytime, and anyplace, using any media, device, or operating system. A Unified Communications is part of a solution that includes network infrastructure, security, wireless, management applications, lifecycle services, flexible deployment and outsourced management options, and third-party applications. The Cisco Unified Communications Manager (formerly known as Cisco Unified CallManager) is the call-processing component of the Cisco Unified Communications system.
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- 45. Cisco Unified Communications Manager IP voice call setup is initiated between the IP phone, IP videophone or gateway, and Cisco Unified CallManager. Cisco Unified CallManager classifies a call based on parameters such as application (voice or video) and Multilevel Precedence and Preemption (MLPP), and signals to the Cisco RSVP Agent in the access router. Bandwidth pools are preconfigured in the router on a per-application and per-interface basis. Using the classification provided by Cisco Unified CallManager, the Cisco RSVP Agent attempts to set up a call within the appropriate bandwidth pool and across the WAN to a far-end Cisco RSVP Agent for the receiving party. If RSVP bandwidth is secured, the Cisco RSVP Agent signals back to Cisco Unified CallManager. Cisco Unified CallManager in turn signals to the IP phone, IP videophone, or gateway and the call proceeds. The Cisco RSVP Agent can apply differentiated services code point (DSCP) marking to media packets based on instruction from the Cisco Unified CallManager. DSCP packet marking may be applied to place the RSVP secured media stream into the router priority queue. If RSVP bandwidth cannot be secured, the Cisco RSVP Agent signals back to Cisco Unified CallManager, which administers policies. The call is either disallowed or allowed to proceed with a lower-priority DSCP packet marking applied by the Cisco RSVP Agent as instructed by the Cisco Unified CallManager.
- 46. Cisco Unified Communications Manager Mid-call policies may also be applied for handling of changes to the media stream such as transfers during a call. Network design using the Cisco RSVP Agent allows voice and video calls to proceed as part of a single unified network together with data. This setup allows for support of meshed designs, multitiered designs, adjustment to dynamic link changes, and redundant links. This single design helps reduce the costs for both infrastructure and management. Because CAC is managed and secured and QoS is applied as a network component, there is no reliance on end-user devices. Cisco RSVP Agent functions independently of the call-signaling protocol, and hence, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP), H.323, and Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) are all supported. Figure 2 shows how the Cisco Unified CallManager and Cisco RSVP Agent in the router work together to optimize the voice quality across the IP network.