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A safe pair of hands for FiReControl
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FiReControl is one of the key building blocks in evolving the UK’s public safety. EADS is working in partnership with Communities and Local Government to deliver new levels of community protection to meet the complex challenges of the 21st century.
Through FiReControl, the Government will deliver a national network of nine Regional Control Centres (RCCs) that can support each other in mobilising and managing the resources of all Fire and Rescue Services in England. To achieve this they will be designed to the bespoke requirements of the Fire and Rescue Services (FRS), thoroughly tested in a multitude of scenarios and dynamically integrated to provide an optimum service in the most demanding environments.
FiReControl involves the convergence of the current 46 nationwide control rooms with a national network of nine purpose-built Regional Control Centres (RCCs) that will provide a linked, secure, resilient communications and information infrastructure to more effectively manage and deploy resources on a local, regional or national level. There is no doubt that the Fire and Rescue Service in England is one of the best in the world; the new solution enables data to be stored nationally and takes the service to the next level. Different Fire and Rescue Services currently deploy their resources, utilising different command and control and mobilisation systems. FiReControl will align the best practices across the RCCs and facilitate the sharing of information on a national level. This also enables resilience - that is the capacity to control and handle any civil emergency, including response to terrorist attacks and environmental disasters, even if some of the RCCs are attacked themselves.
FiReControl employs many new technologies to create the optimised service:
In the event of a nationalscale incident, resources can be deployed to anywhere in the country from any of the RCCs. The design of the RCCs is consistent across the country, with a familiar format allowing for generic training and easily transferable skills.
Operations can be upscaled or down-scaled immediately to suit the requirements of any given situation; FiReControl is responsive to dynamic and changing needs, locally, regionally or nationally.
FiReControl integrates with Firelink, the national wide-area radio network of the UK’s Fire and Rescue Service. It utilises secure inter-site network connectivity and provides a highly resilient data environment for both storage and transfer mechanisms.
EADS is sensitive to the process of transition and operational continuity in delivering a common national response capability.
The EADS consortium has a partnership approach which has already resulted in the delivery of information and technology solutions to 30% of the UK’s Fire and Rescue Service. The consortium consists of market leaders in their respective fields and will deliver a world class suite of computer-aided systems to enable staff to locate and directly mobilise the nearest appropriate resources automatically.
Through the use of a System Reference Model, EADS can duplicate RCC functionality, ensuring that all possible integration risks have been identified and mitigated. This allows for a faster rollout, lower through-life costs and the ability to provide additional capacity, resilience and functionality.
EADS is in the top quartile of suppliers to the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Parties involved in selecting EADS for the contract award stated that they were impressed with our “end-user” focus and passion for delivering a solution that met requirements.
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