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By Mike Worthington
Corporate Vice President and General Manager
Motorola Safety & Security Solutions
On Sept. 11, 2001, images of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the Pennsylvania airplane crash site forever changed the American psyche. The magnitude of the attack shook the very foundation of the country’s sense of safety and security. Since then, homeland security issues have defined the political agendas of public officials at every level of government and law enforcement.
Public safety officials consistently cite the ability to acquire and maintain multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional communications as the most critical component to minimize the loss of lives and property in a crisis. Tragic experience has shown that communications preparedness is a vital necessity.
Over the last decade, a growing number of cities and states have recognized the necessity of implementing interoperable communications systems – many spurred by crisis in which communications proved difficult or impossible.
Planning for Interoperability
Interoperable communications should comprise the backbone of all homeland security initiatives. Today’s lawmakers and policy-makers at all levels of government are looking at public safety communications with a fresh perspective. Key questions that should be answered early in the planning process include:
Can the current two-way radio system coordinate with other public safety agencies in the region?
Which agencies already have compatible equipment? Can the similarities be maximized?
Does the emergency response plan and radio system allow responders to communicate with dispatchers and the incident commander?
Does the radio system have backup when lines of communication become overloaded or sustain damage?
Creating strong alliances with neighboring public safety agencies is crucial to the successful design and implementation of an integrated communications system. Individual agencies cannot address interoperability alone. Careful consideration must also be given to issues of spectrum, standards for effective interoperability, as well as, all available funding sources.
The benefits of communications interoperability are compelling:
Preparedness: Having an interoperable communications system can ensure readiness when multiple responders arrive on scene.
Detection: Ensuring the timely exchange of information and records, including access to crime databases, gives all responders the background they need on criminal suspects.
Prevention: Having the right tools in place to share information means the facts are available to facilitate quick decisions.
Protection: Knowing an individual’s criminal background can mean the difference between an immediate arrest and putting a suspect back on the street.
Response and Recovery: Ensuring seamless coordination on the scene can mean local, state and federal agencies are working together at optimal levels.
Incident Management: Developing interagency plans means radios can be quickly redeployed to interagency communications channels.
Today, a wide range of interoperability solutions is available to city, county and state wireless communications users. The best choice for any agency or department depends on its interoperability plan. In addition, the availability of additional spectrum, new technologies and reliable funding sources also influence the interoperability solution selected.
The following six levels of interoperability represent the most common communications solutions public safety agencies and departments consider for implementation. Most are not mutually exclusive. Departments may select more than one to meet various interoperability requirements.
Level 1 – Swap Radios: The most basic interoperability approach. One agency or department provides its own radios to another department working a common emergency scene.
Level II – Talkaround: With this solution, officers using one system can talk directly to those using another through their individual radios. Multiple radio users all communicate on the same transmit and receive frequencies in the conventional mode. This option is best applied in situations where there may be as few as two or three agencies responding to an incident.
Level III – Mutual Aid Channels: Mutual aid networks use dedicated infrastructure and frequencies to deliver interoperability. Widely used in public safety, this solution includes dedicated spectrum and infrastructure to deliver communications interoperability. Most regions and states in the U.S. have these systems in place.
Level IV – Gateway (Console Patch): This approach uses specialized boxes to enable the connection of two otherwise incompatible communications systems. An ideal solution in public safety situations where a temporary connection is required, the gateway solution uses a dedicated device to connect systems together, rather than connecting individual radios together as in the Talkaround solution.
Level V – System-Specific Roaming: Similar to roaming within a cellular system, this approach allows a user to maintain communications outside the coverage area of the home system in a neighboring jurisdiction, but only where pre-arranged agreements are in place.
Level VI – Standards-Based Shared Systems: The most sophisticated interoperability approach, this solution involves different systems operating on a standards-based, shared infrastructure with compatible subscriber units working on both their home system and the shared network. This method ensures advanced features can be used by all radios and provides a migration path to future technologies.
Building the Case for Interoperability
A number of communications success stories have emerged where interoperable systems are in use. From an immediate and coordinated emergency response to the attack on the Pentagon to an uneventful Winter Olympic Games in 2002, state-of-the-art communications solutions are continually proving their worth. Not only are these systems enabling multiple agencies to respond to crisis situations, they are also enhancing routine crime fighting and law enforcement efforts every day.
As reflected in the following examples, the key to success in building an effective communications solution lies in a thorough, well-coordinated planning process. Creating a comprehensive framework of interoperability will help public safety agencies prepare for seamless, concise and responsive interagency communication well into the future.
September 11, 2001: The Pentagon
The Arlington County Public Safety Emergency Communications Center (ECC) serves as the 9-1-1 and dispatch center for the county’s police, fire and EMS departments. As the events in New York were unfolding, the first call came into the ECC from an Arlington County police officer on patrol who saw the plane strike the Pentagon. Faced with the reality of a significant disaster, the ECC immediately contacted three of its neighbors – the city of Alexandria, Fairfax County and the Airport Authority at Reagan Washington National Airport.
The goal, according to former ECC Administrator Steve Souder, was to assemble a significant contingent of equipment and personnel at designated staging points near the county line. This cooperative action was simplified because all area agencies had been equipped with radios that work on the same 800 MHz system. In addition, all the radios used by Alexandria, the Airports Authority, Fairfax County and District of Columbia fire and EMS departments are pre-programmed for interoperability.
Souder attributes this seamless operation to proactive planning that began almost 19 years ago following another tragedy, when Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into Washington D.C.’s 14th Street Bridge on the Potomac River.
More than 50 public safety agencies ultimately responded to the Pentagon attack. That meant 900 radio users – all with differing mission requirements and priorities – all needed to communicate through the ECC.
According to Souder, “On Sept. 11, we had more units than we ever had before operating on the same channel, communicating in a very disciplined fashion with the same incident commander to address the same common challenge – without any problems whatsoever.”
Souder stresses an important lesson of Sept. 11 is the necessity of looking beyond the communications needs of any one agency to ensure interoperability with neighboring agencies and those an agency may need to rely on in the future. Radio systems need to be upgraded in an organized and cooperative fashion to ensure that when necessary, all agencies have the ability to organize their response and command on a common radio frequency.
In the examples bellow, thorough planning and multi-jurisdictional cooperation were crucial to the successful implementation of interoperable communications systems.
The 2002 Winter Olympic Games
The first major international event of 2002, the Winter Olympics, proved Utah’s cutting-edge public safety communications system was ready for the ultimate competition. The safety of 3,500 athletes and thousands of spectators and dignitaries depended on it.
The most powerful law enforcement tool officials had at their disposal was a newly deployed Motorola 800 MHz SmartZoneÔ trunked, mixed-mode radio communications system that comprises the Utah Communications Agency Network (UCAN) – the backbone used for all Olympic radio communications.
Despite enormous call traffic – more than 8.5 million during the Games – the system performed flawlessly.
The groundwork for what would become the UCAN/Olympic communications system was laid in 1993, when Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt formed an intergovernmental Task Force on Wireless Mobile Communications comprised of more than 50 public safety communication and technology experts. The task force assessed Utah’ s public safety communications needs and found that most of the existing frequencies in the 25-year-old 150 MHz system were full and incapable of further expansion.
In 1997, more than 100 separate radio systems served the public safety agencies in the eight counties surrounding Salt Lake City – where 1.8 million citizens and 80 percent of Utah’s population reside – making communication between agencies difficult if not impossible.
Construction of the $18 million UCAN radio system infrastructure started in January of 1999, with final system acceptance received in October of 2001. The 800 MHz systems provides two-way critical radio communications capabilities to 91 public safety agencies in the eight counties surrounding Salt Lake City, along what is known as the Wasatch Front.
Currently, law enforcement, fire, EMS, the Department of Public Safety/Utah Highway Patrol, the Department of Corrections, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service have access to the system. For the Olympics, UCAN established console-to-console communication patches with the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury, allowing the U.S. Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Immigration and Naturalization Service to communicate directly with all UCAN public safety agencies.
It was through the dedicated efforts and participation of all public safety agencies that the system became a reality,” Proctor said. Interoperability was and continues to be our primary goal.”
San Diego County
San Diego County’ s emergency response to two local high school shootings in the spring of 2002 was immediate and effective due to the launch of a Regional Communications System (RCS) in 1997. The county actually began preparing for major emergencies like these more than 15 years ago by taking the first steps toward building a shared communications network.
Today, the $40 million RCS is one of the largest and most sophisticated communications systems in the United States. A total of 185 agencies now participate in the RCS, an increase of 50 agencies in just the past two years. More than 13,400 radios are used on the system, organized in hundreds of pre-determined talk groups to facilitate communications in virtually any situation. An RD-LAP 19.2 mobile data system, which includes some 400 mobile data terminals, provides users access to such crime databases as the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications Systems (CLETS) and the National Crime Information Center (NCIC).
The voice system blankets the county’s 4,200 square miles with 43 repeater sites, including two simulcast cells with seven repeater sites each, and handles about 71,000 radio calls daily. The system also includes 11, 9-1-1 call centers that are strategically located throughout the county.
Both San Diego County Assistant Sheriff Tom Zoll and RCS Manager Curt Munro credit the county’s communications capabilities and interoperability with providing the infrastructure necessary to communicate to multiple agencies throughout an emergency. Having a pre-determined and well-practiced emergency response plan enabled all agencies to act efficiently and quickly in both school-shooting incidents, limiting loss of life and injuries.
For additional information please contact Mike Worthington at mike.worthington@motorola.com or call (847) 538-5847
October 5, 2003 at 01:42 PM in Security US | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home