Figure 1. Strathclyde police control room

Command and control of the emergency services Computerized command and control systems are in- creasingly being used by the emergency services. Bob Jones describes several operational Argus networks. Because o f the increasing cost o f salaries, i t is becoming necessary to use as many emergency-services personnel as possible in operational rather than administrative roles.

This demands good communications, and the paper describes several operational computerized command and control systems in use with UK police forces and fire brigades.

Typical incident-handling procedures for police and fire emergencies are described. Management- information capabilities, personnel factors and reliability are discussed, together with selection criteria. In conclusion, the paper stresses the importance

o f systems interconnection to form larger networks. Contact with the emergency services is restricted, for most members of the public, to times when they are in difficulty and possibly in immediate danger. On such occasions, society expects the emergency services to respond with the speed and precision of a military machine. In common, however, with most other public services the primary emergency forces of police, fire and ambulance are constrained to operate on relatively small budgets.

In industrialized countries, the main single cost of emergency services is the payment of personnel. This proportion is likely to increase if the services are to continue to employ staff with the high levels of integrity and professional skill that society demands. This gives impetus to the search for means to use expensive manpower effectively and to deploy as high a proportion of people as possible in operational rather than administrative roles.

The efficient operational use of manpower depends on Ferranti Military Systems Division, Bird Hall Lane, Stockport, Cheshire SK3 0XQ, UK

its being controlled effectively, which in turn demands good communications with each 'resource ' (e.g. patrolling police constable, specialized fire-fighting appliance or ambulance).

Communication between resources and their control centres is essential. The control centre must be able to send commands to individual resources and receive acknowledge- ment from them and the centre must be able to obtain up-to-date information on the position and operational status of each resource so that the most appropriate response to a call for assistance can be made.

In the UK, the emergency services have been at the forefront of communications development, from the earliest use of wireless through the use of police boxes with flashing lights to the present almost universal use of mobile radio and pocket phones, which are often associated with a digital data transmission capability. Until recently, the coordination of communications at the control centre relied on paper and pencil, conveyor belts, maps and tables updated by means of Chinagraph pencils, chalk or tallies, and manually operated teleprinter networks. However, the development of powerful and reliable minicomputers in the early 1970s enabled sophisticated systems that assist in the great majority of control room activities to be installed. The structure of the emergency services within the UK, especially in the police service, has enabled the new technology to be introduced in a carefully controlled manner.

The police and fire services in the UK, although they retain a regional structure, have a national identity, largely because of their statutory duty to maintain nationally applied standards that are administered by the UK Home Office. A consequence of this arrangement is that any innovation introduced by a particular police force or fire brigade can be carefully monitored, and many of the lessons learnt can be applied elsewhere.

vol I no I february 78 19

POLICE SYSTEMS

The first civil computerized command and control system was installed with what was then the City of Birmingham Police Force in 1971. This system, supplied by Ferranti Military Systems Division, was introduced under Home Office impetus, the force merely offering themselves as a test bed. Apart from funding, the Home Office was able to provide staff to develop the specification and monitor the subsequent performance of the system once it was in service.

An impartial observer was commissioned to examine the benefits of the Birmingham experiment, which is still in service with the West Midlands force. The result of this investigation was an endorsement of the cost effectiveness of the system together with encouragement to other police forces to consider acquiring similar schemes.

The experience gained in developing the Birmingham system enabled a number of desirable additional features to be identified and it was decided to embody these in a more ambitious scheme in Glasgow rather than to continue to disturb the Birmingham installation, which was by then playing an important operational role for the police force.

In addition to the facilities introduced at Birmingham, the Glasgow system incorporates an automatic street index, which, together with semiautomatic vehicle- status equipment, allows controllers to view a picture of the relative locations of incidents and resources on a specialized computer-controlled map display. The system also incorporates routines for dealing with major incidents such as air crashes, automation of the police teleprinter network and a more comprehensive manage- ment-information package than that in Birmingham.

This scheme led other police authorities from all over the world to develop specifications to suit their own area and to purchase command and control systems. Ferranti Military Systems Division have a system for Staffordshire, together with systems for West Yorkshire and a major extension of the Glasgow system to cover the whole of the Strathclyde region at different stages of manufacture.

Each of these systems involves the adaptation and enhancement of the original Glasgow system to meet the specific needs of the area it covers. Staffordshire, for example, is a mixture of rural and urban communities, and this clearly introduces a different set of policing requirements from those needed in the predominantly urban areas of Birmingham and Glasgow. The main departures in Staffordshire are a different concept of resource management and the introduction of an experimental system of duty-state planning.

The development in scope of police command and control systems is reflected in the increasing power of computer configurations used in their implementation. The original Birmingham system used an Argus 500 processor with 48 kwords of core store, two 2 Mbyte disc drives and three magnetic-tape handlers. This configuration supports 21 VDUs. In contrast, Glasgow uses two Argus 500 processors, each with 64 kwords of core store together with sophisticated communications processors or multi- plexers (CMX), six 2 Mbyte disc drives and five magnetic-tape handlers. A total of 2g VDUs and 57 teleprinters is controlled by this system. Using the newer Argus 700 technology, Staffordshire will

eventually employ two Argus 700S processors, one Argus 700E, communications processors, fixed and exchangeable disc drives and tape handlers. 28 VDUs and 25 teleprinters are connected to the system. Police Force in 1971. This system, supplied by Ferranti Military Systems Division, was introduced under Home Office impetus, the force merely offering themselves as a test bed. Apart from funding, the Home Office was able

FIRE SYSTEMS

The fire service, which was more fundamentally affected by local government reorganization in 1974, has not been slow to take advantage of the work carried out by the police. Although the detailed control of a fire brigade is necessarily very different from that of a police force, the essentials of their command and control requirements are similar, The Greater Manchester County Fire Service has ordered a sophisticated command and control system from Ferranti.

POLICE INCIDENT HANDLING

The features of a modern command and control system can best be illustrated by describing how one such system is used in handling a typical incident involving the police force. Each officer in the police control room has access to all the force's central communication facilities, and is equipped with a VDU connected to the command and control computer (Figures 1 and 2). All the control positions operate in paralled, to ensure maximum flexibility. On receipt of a call for assistance, typically via a 999 call, the controller starts a new incident log on his VDU, keying in the details of the incident as he receives them over the telephone. A unique serial number and timing of the incident is automatically allocated by the computer. Once details of the location of the incident have been input to the computer, a search is automatically instigated in an

Low-power radio link to A Division resources B Division C Division D Division (panda Cars, resources resources resources foot potrolsetc.) I " ~

I . . . . . . !'V' I I . . . . . . . . L u' I I . . . . . . . . . _u, I I ~iv~si°na/-I I controlA I I controlB I I controlC I , controlD I I ithvD° I "-7-"

/

Planning . [ ~ 1 Central control ~ . , ~ / information ~ Line I I roomwith J I~mergency rathe Force's~%,t-~l printer ~ computersystem J telephone lines management I I J and VDU s J Leased . .

/ "\~graph line

/ \ \ ~ " ~ Police station I

High-power radiolink \ \ ~ Police station I carrying voice and data " \ ~ teleprinter 4-o Force resources \ (tra/'fic patrols,dog unitsetc.} ~ I

Teleprinters are installed o~virtuolly oil stations

Figure 2. Communications paths in a typical UK police force

20 computer communications

index of streets held in the computer's memory. When the particular street involved is located, the computer initiates the display of a map of the area concerned, on which the incident location and the position of police vehicles in the area are displayed. Associated with each vehicle is a call sign and code which indicates the operational status of the car to the controller. By consulting his map display, the controller can select a suitable vehicle to attend the incident in question, and he is able to pass details of the incident to the patrol car over the force's radio network. While speaking over the radio, the controller keys details of the units he has asked to attend into the incident log, where his action is automatically timed by the computer. While the patrol car(s) travel to the incident, the controller is free to use his VDU for other purposes, and, if necessary, he can enter further new incidents. Once the patrolling officers reach the incident, they will take initial action, and then report to the control room by radio, either requesting further assistance or advising the controller of their actions. This report must be entered in the log for that particular incident, but the f lexibi l i ty of the command and control computer enables any controller who is free to recall the up-to-date log quickly to his screen and add to it as appropriate. As well as timing each action in the log, the computer automatically notes which control position logs each action.

Should the patrol car despatched to the incident fail to report within a predetermined time, the control staff receive automatic reminders from the computer alerting them to the fact, so that they can call up the car on radio or send assistance. The timing of these reminders depends on the initial classification that the incident has been given in the log; there is clearly less concern when a car despatched to a road traffic accident

Completed incident logs stored for subsequent analysis

Resource report back

Details of serious incidents passed to appropriate Force resource(s)

I

assistance

Central i m. control room I

I I m

Incident details passed to correct police division

Details passed to appropriate divisional resource

I Request for force assist- once or return of completed

incideiT log

I Resource ~lUeSts assistance or reports resuff of incident

Figure 3. Information flow in a police command and control system

Figure 4. Typical vehicle-mounted data-transmission box

is late reporting than when cars attending a scene of reported violence fail to report back.

The procedure described above illustrates an incident handled entirely by the central control room. Less serious incidents would normally be passed to local divisional controllers situated at locations throughout the force. In this case, initial details would be entered into the computer at the central control room and then automatic- ally transmitted to a VDU at the divisional station concerned for local action. Alternative procedures exist for handling major incidents such as rail or air crashes. (See Figure 3.)

An essential feature of incident handling using a computer system is the abil ity of the computer to maintain a file describing the location and operational status of each resource. The simplest means of updating this file is for each resource to report its position and status regularly as a voice message over the radio network. This technique, as well as being tedious for both patrolling officers and controllers, is extremely wasteful of scarce radio channels. Much more efficient use of the available radio bandwidth can be achieved by using digital data transmission to pass standard location and status messages directly into the computer's memory. Fairly inexpensive encoder boxes are available for f itt ing in cars to initiate these standard messages (Figure 4). Within heavily built-up city areas, there is a bias towards equipment that will automatically sense the cars' positions and regularly transmit this information to the computer. Although a number of techniques for automatic vehicle location are available, to date, systems offering sufficient accuracy have 'car-fit' costs rivalling the cost of the cars themselves.

In addition to the command and control system's incident-handling role, it is usually very cost-effective to add an automatic message-switching facil ity. This is because most forces have existing teleprinter networks, and so there is no need for them to rent or purchase additional printers or communications lines, and because the computer system (Figure 5) required for the main command and control system has a large communications-handling bias and is therefore suited to the addition of message switching. Automating the telegraph network, of course, greatly enhances its attraction as a means of transmitting data from one police station to another, rather than as simply a communication path between each station and the head-

vol 1 no 1 february 78 21

quarters, and enables the teleprinters at divisional head- quarters to act on standby arrangements for the single VDU at each of these sites.

FIRE INCIDENT H A N D L I N G The requirements for the command and control of a large fire brigade differ from those for the police at the detailed level, but the logical steps described earlier are applicable. Possibly the largest difference between these two services is one of priority, and this is simply reflected in the way in which the aids and facilities provided by the computer system are used by the two very different sets of control- lers. In certain respects, a real-time computer system can offer the fire-service controller greater assistance than his police counterpart. For instance, the initial response of the fire service to each incident is preplanned, and depends only on the location of the reported incident. Once this location is identified, the first priority of the controller is to mobilize a preplanned attendance of fire appliances to that location. A computer system enables the details of the preplanned action to be quickly presented to the controller on his VDU once the incident location has been identified in the computer's street index file. A second advantage that the fire brigades have over the police is the simple means of communicating incident details to the selected resources. Many of the resources are located at the fire stations at which they are based, and it is often convenient to print incident details at the station while the alarm bells are sounded. Operation of the bells and assembly and transmission of the printer message can be accomplished automatically by the computer from the log details previously keyed into the VDU by the controller. Naturally the avoidance of radio as a primary means of despatching resources to an incident reduces the pressure on radio channel space, as does the integration of digital data transmission over radio into the system. Many of the messages sent by fire appliances over radio are of a standard form and can be reduced to coded messages sent by pressing a button on the encoder box fitted in each appliance.

Long -term store of incident log tapes

I Backup.a, I DrY= displays of J I tap resouce I bad

J status I I star ng I Communications I ports 1-o local and I remote VDU s, tele- J printers and other

~ I I..ii - I I Communications I ''-~" I receiver(s) ~ decoder ~ " ~ M n c°mpuTer ~ 1 pr°cess°r

Continuous hard-e~

Management information output

Figure 5. Main elements o f a command and control computer configuration

Chemical database

A further computer facility of particular relevance to the fire service is the means of accessing information on treating chemical hazards. In its simplest form, this facility might comprise a computer-based index to infor- mation held on microfiche, while a future more ambitious scheme might permit each controller to access a nationally held and maintained computer database of chemical information from his own command and control VDU interfaced to the national computer via his local command and control machine.

The setting up of such a database has been a topic of discussion for a number of years. Obvious attractions are the ease of updating a single national database by the chemical industry and the confidence that brigades would have in knowing that they were acting on the most up-to- date information available on a particular chemical hazard. Some difficulty has been experienced in agreeing the scope of such a scheme, which at its simplest could provide simple nominal access to the file, while more ambitious schemes might attempt to identify unknown chemical hazards by smell, colour or the results of other simple tests. A sophisticated system may also attempt to draw attention to the danger from 'cocktails' of otherwise harmless chemicals. A newly formed committee of interested parties is currently trying to progress this project, using a United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority computer at Harwell.

The computer configurations required by fire brigades differ only slightly from those used by the police. Generally, all resources are under the direct command of the central control room, and hence there is usually no requirement for remote VDUs. Should a particular brigade decide against the use of teleprinters to receive mobilizing messages, the command and control computer be much less communications-biased since most of the brigade's communications aids will be used via a manual interface.

M A N A G E M E N T I N F O R M A T I O N

The incident load placed on emergency services is 'peaky', and it is during the periods of high incident rate (typically 22.00 to 23.30 hours for the police) that the benefits of a computer-based command and control system are most valuable in allowing the control staff to assimilate the load and obtain the most benefit from their stretched resources. It is therefore particularly important that the computer system performs well at these times and continues to achieve fast responses on its VDUs. Thus, almost inevitably, a properly designed command and control computer will be underutilized for prolonged periods, particularly from midnight until 06.00 hours. A particularly useful application of this 'spare capacity' is in the statistics and planning area, which is often covered by the title 'management information'. Management information may range from the provision of printouts of selected incident logs for senior officers to long-term comparisons of the occurrence of various types of incident in different parts of the service's territory and examination of the response times achieved. This sort of study can be extremely valuable in both medium-term planning (e.g. the adjustment of police beats or the redeployment of special items of firefighting equipment to a different fire station) and longer term planning (e.g. the

22 computer communications

siting of a new fire station). A management-information capability can also be used to satisfy the demand for annual statistical returns made on many services.

Any management-information system requires as its raw material details of the service's operations, and these are contained in the detailed incident logs. Provided that the command and control system is computer-based, this raw material is captured in computer-readable form virtually free of charge. Any attempt at obtaining sophisticated management information, perhaps using time bought on a local-authority data-processing installation, without the advantage of a computer-based command and control system carries enormous data-preparation overheads, because of having to translate handwritten incident logs into machine-readable form. A persuasive argument for analysing this data captured in the system's operational role on the command and control computer itself is the flexibil i ty it gives the user to reschedule the software runs. By their very nature, management information require- ments are constantly changing, and require continuous development. It is often easier to make such changes on a machine that is entirely under the users' control, particu- larly when bureau charges are saved by using what would otherwise be spare capacity. Naturally, care must be taken to ensure that the systems' operational roles are not preju- diced by the execution of management information work, but the operating systems available on the computer ranges used extensively for command and control will normally offer background-mode working as a standard feature, so that management-information programs are quickly suspen- ded should any operational demands be made on the computer's systems resources.

PERSONN E L FACTORS

Experience in the use of computer-based command and control systems has highlighted the need for high levels of user acceptance at all levels if maximum benefits are

to be derived from the system (Figure 6). For example, the design of VDU formats and operating procedures must be suitable for experienced and trainee users. The trainee needs a set of 'conversational' procedures that would soon infuriate the more experienced user, and short-cut methods that can revert to lengthier conversational procedures at any stage must be provided for experienced users. Less obviously, but equally importantly, the personnel involved less intimately with the system must be persuaded that the new system offers them advantages as well as calling on them to accept a different way of working. For example, the crews of police cars will be much more likely to use their message- encoder box diligently if the power of the computer's automatic-reminder system, which protects them from being abandoned when in need of assistance, has been fully explained to them.

SELECTION CRITERIA

The selection of computer equipment to satisfy the demands of a comprehensive command and control system depends on two sets of requirements. For a particular system, the computer hardware must be arranged so that there is enough power to provide fast response times under peak incident loads and so that it will be able to support large-scale tape and disc backing stores to satisfy manage- ment-information requirements. The equipment must come from a range of hardware and software that can be configured into various sizes of system and take advantage of applications software written for one site at installations that differ in size. The requirement for portable software, coupled with the need to develop and modify existing installations over the life of the system, is aided by the use of a recognized high-level language, which must be able to be compiled efficiently to satisfy the real-time requirements of the system.

The UK Home Office constraints on hardware selection tend to limit choice to one of the 'mainline ' ranges of mini-

Figure 6. Comprehensive command and control console

vol 1 no 1 february 78 23

computers. The Home Office has selected CORAL 66 as the preferred high-level language for command and control systems.

Many of the systems in the UK are based on the Ferranti Argus range of minicomputers, using a spread of processors from the middle to the top end of the range. A typical installation might comprise an Argus 700G processor with, Perhaps 96 kwords of main store plus an intelligent communications channel, disc-pack drives and two or three tape transports.

FALLBACK

The problem of fallback in the event of system failure has been approached in a number of ways. Some users have accepted the levels of downtime associated with a single processor system, their argument being that, whatever level of redundancy is provided, the emergency services must provide themselves with a useable manual fallback arrangement that must be practised from time to time to retain its credibility. Other users, while accepting the necessity for manual fallback, have preferred to purchase varying levels of computer fallback, arguing that they prefer to hold rehearsals of the manual arrangements at times convenient to themselves. The Staffordshire Police installation comprises an Argus 700S with a front-end Argus 700E. The failure of either machine leaves a skeleton service available from the remaining machine. The quality of the service depends not only on the nature of the fault

but also on the time of day at which it occurs, since the reduced computing power can support a wider range of facilities with reasonable response times when the incident load is low.

CONCLUSIONS

Computer-based command and control systems are now firmly established as effective tools for the emergency services. Future developments depend on the rate at which the price of minicomputers continues to fall as their power increases. The larger services are likely to introduce extra facilities, not necessarily of a strictly command and control nature, on computers under their own control to give them the flexibility they require. It seems inevitable that some form of automatic resource-location system will become cost-effective, although not all users will be attracted to this development, and the smaller brigades and forces will begin to use systems that will provide subsets of the facilities on the more ambitious schemes implemented on very much smaller and less expensive hardware.

However, the most important step will be the interconnection of systems, first on the basis of local cooperation, and ultimately on a national basis. This development will mean that local systems will operate in a network, which for the police, for example, will reflect the trend apparent in the setting up of organizations such as regional crime squads.

AppliedErgonomics Handbook Edited by B. Shackel

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The industrial use of ergonomics General framework and workstation analysis Displays Controls Layout of panels and machines Seating in industry

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24 computer communications