Designing and Implementing a Resilient Smart Public Safety Program

Public Safety
Sectors	Public Safety
Contact	Brenda Bannan
Topics	Business Continuity Designing and Implementing a Resilient Smart Public Safety Program Disaster Recovery Emergency Preparedness Emergency Support Functions Floods Law and Order Public Safety and Response Public Safety-Resilience and Regeneration of Communities
Activities Advanced Flood Warning and Environmental Awareness AFWEAR is a real-time network of environmental sensors, including rain and precipitation sensors that will be located throughout the city of Rohnert Park, a city at the base of Sonoma Mountain in Sonoma County, CA, located 50 miles north of San Francisco with population of 40,000. The purpose of the system will be the following: Improve flood response time and efficiency throughout the city. Link rainfall observations in the upper watershed (on the hill) and coasts to predictions of stream flow in the city. Provide ability to incorporate various environmental sensors, watershed models (assessment tools to plan and manage watersheds), and user-friendly communication tools into the network to allow for rapid understanding and collaboration between scientists, citizens, and city planners as necessary in response to environmental “events”. Lake Tahoe Basin End Warning System and Bi-state Next Gen 911 Dispatch and Traffic Management Center The Lake Tahoe Basin End Warning Systems, will provide a cross-jurisdictional system that emergency managers will use to improve performance, while providing predictive insights and more connectivity between first responders, traffic and transit operations, and the public. The system will integrate Smart Street lights, SaS, and publicly available datasets to provide a better understanding of visitors in the Lake Tahoe Basin including travel movements and duration of stay, emergency roadway issues including closures or hazards caused by landslides, fires, toxic spills, avalanches, tree falls, and power outages. These criteria will be considered for real-time detection and notification systems and reduction in secondary incidents. First responders and transportation agencies of the Lake Tahoe and Truckee region would also like to develop a Bi-State preliminary exploratory study of a consolidated command center for dispatch services of fire and emergency services with an integrated traffic management center that is consistent with the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Transportation Department’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Online Meeting & Collaboration Tools - Commercial COVID19 has created a need for organizations and individuals to connect and collaborate remotely using conferencing tools. Real Time Resilience Objectives Improve the process of collecting environmental data from sensors coupled with existing geo-referential data about critical infrastructures and exposed people. Improve analysis, management and use of relevant data and practical information (Priority 1-a - Sendai Framework for DRR - UNISDR). Develop and test new tools to improve citizens safety and security based on early warning systems, and high resolution nowcasting and short-term reactions to emergencies. Improve the knowledge of the territory and of the resilience capability of critical infrastructures .

Authors

To be successful, a smart city technology solution mus t mature from a pilot that meets research and development goals, to a sustainable system that can be replicated or scaled to provide key capabilities that respond to operational requirements, while driving further innovation in a broader, more responsive ecosystem. The ability for projects to provide expanding impact into multiple areas (with primary and secondary benefits) is a key consideration for technology applications to support S&CC.

A brief survey in Spring 2017 of active GCTC action clusters revealed the following initiatives focused on emergency preparedness and response, along with action clusters that leverage open data, overall city resilience, transportation, citizen engagement, utilities, public health, and other sectors. This list is not exhaustive, as new action clusters are forming and developing technology solutions on an ongoing basis. Flood and severe weather warning sensor systems – Emergency Preparedness (Prevention, Protection, and Mitigation)

• Advanced Flood Warning and Environmental Awareness System
• Next Generation Resilient Warning Systems for Tornados and Flash Floods
• Real-Time Threat Monitoring and Management for City Underground Infrastructure
• Safe Town Resilient Communication Platform “NerveNet” for Earthquakes and Tsunamis
• Water Level Management for Flood Prevention
• Seismic and Infrastructure Monitoring
• Atmospheric Sensing for Severe Weather Threats
• Air Quality Sensing Supporting Public Health
• StormSense Flood Forecasting

Emergency Response (Mitigation, Response, and Recovery)

• Drone-based smart emergency response for surveillance and data collection
• Deployable communications and decision support for Incident Command Systems
• Artificial Intelligence and predictive analytics for emergency responders
• Geo-fenced alerting solutions to reduce response times for responders
• Intelligent mobile battery storage systems to support city resilience and emergency response
• Multi-time scale logistical scheduling, maintenance and dispatch for emergency services
• SMART multi-team response training for emergency medical teams
• Business EOCs (staffed and/or virtual)

Other

• Open data platforms for scalable and multi-domain IoT applications for environmental and infrastructure monitoring to support predictive analytics
• Real Time Resilience – Data treatment tools supporting real-time decision-making
• Community traffic guidance and control system supporting disaster response and evacuation
• Safe community awareness and alerting network

Priorities for Technology Development and Implementation to Enhance Public Safety

A key challenge facing communities in addressing the potential hazards and vulnerabilities that must be addressed in a Smart Public Safety program resides in simply determining a methodology for dividing the challenge into manageable phases or steps. During deliberations among members of the PSSC Working Group, we discovered the need to develop a process like the community problem-solving approach provided in the Comprehensive Preparedness Guide for Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning developed by FEMA (Figure 14 ). While this approach is directed at planning for disaster recovery, it offers a useful approach for determining technology development opportunities or insertion points that might improve overall City Resilience or the capability for a community to effectively plan for, and recover from a disaster or civil emergency. As a guideline for identifying technology requirements and priorities, this process may prove useful.

Figure 14. Comprehensive Preparedness Guide Planning Steps (FEMA Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning Guide for State Governments, 2016)

1. Overall Planning Considerations

The following are the high priority challenges and opportunities identified by the PSSC for technology applications that would enhance public safety and community, city, or regional resilience.

Goal: Enable effective decision-making and coordination of resources, talent and community energy to effectively maintain and restore community functions, and recover community vitality whenever impacted by localized civil emergencies, or large-scale, regional disasters.

Objective 1: Identify opportunities for technology applications to provide just-in-time access to relevant information and decision support aids to improve collaborative planning, and to mobilize resources to speed restoration of community functions.

Objective 2: Ensure that technology development and insertion within S&CC supports current and future needs for both organization and system compatibility (i.e., enhances an open community, as well as an open technology standard).

Objective 3: Provide relevant information to all citizens to ensure the preservation of community cohesion, social structures, and motivation, to engage the talent and energy of the entire community.

Objective 4: Ensure the ability within all technology applications and systems for data capture, transfer, and analysis to improve future disaster recovery methodologies and develop a “learning organization” approach to community resilience.

Objective 5: Build a culture of resilience across community functions, focused on disaster recovery as a critical community capability (i.e., plan for Recovery, rather than simply for Response).

2. End-Users and Audiences for Public Safety Technologies

• Smart cities (i.e., networked and technologically sophisticated)
• Non-Smart cities (i.e., traditional cities with legacy IT infrastructures)
• Communities of any size and geography (scalability)
• First Responders and response agencies
• City agencies, services, departments (critical infrastructure systems and public works)
• Medical services (hospitals; pharmacies; clinics; veterinary)
• City / Community services
  • Non-profits; private voluntary organizations; Faith-based organizations
  • Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters (VOADs)
  • Philanthropic organizations
• Business / Retail Big-Box (National chains) + Small Business (Local/community)
• Schools and childcare services
• Individual citizens and households
• English Proficient / Non-native English speaking communities

3. Priorities for Cities to Build Resilient Systems and Enhance

Public Safety and the Ability for Efficient Recovery

• Communications (internal and external) with priority on public Wi-Fi and mobile devices communications for dispersed and fluid population
• Collaboration capabilities for decision-makers at all levels
• Dedicated communications for Governance / Leadership
• Infrastructure situational awareness among agencies responsible for critical systems
• Data capture, storage, processing, retrieval, and
  • Actionable and secure
  • Dynamic and evolving
  • Accessible and available
• Education / training for community preparedness and recovery using a model of Plan/Organize/Equip/Train/Exercise/Improve
• Social Science research and analytics in such fields as
  • Behavioral economics / organizational behavior / risk/disaster behavior
  • Goal: Change human behavior at the individual and community level and improve individual and community resilience against future events.

1. Current and Future Resources and Technology Investments for Public Safety

• Resilient, pervasive internet (near-universal access to information / knowledge)
  • Ubiquitous, uninterruptible power and communications network
  • Dedicated communications channels for civil officials and responders (e.g., FirstNet)
  • Similar dedicated communications channels for civil population for disaster recovery management (i.e., a FirstNet for the civil population)
  • Graceful degradation and restoration of capability based on priority of need
• Research into leadership methods for ensuring credibility and openness during crises
• Community Centers (i.e. rallying points for community coordination - both real and virtual)
• Community planning system and decision support tools
• AI + Machine Learning (i.e., disaster communications that learn the community)
• Modeling and Simulation for training and Course of Action/Alternatives analysis

1. Strategies for Ensuring Adoption of Smart Public Safety Goals

• Develop a strong Business Case for technology investment and adoption (e.g., technologies with utility during both “Blue Sky” and “Dark Sky” conditions)
• Develop a "Safety Case" that addresses opportunity costs and potential losses from a failure to invest in public safety technologies (essential to assure city government/leadership of the value, Blueprint for reliability, and applicability, and to serve as shield against liability) to ensure political and financial investments in recovery and resilience strategies are accepted
• Business community and private sector involvement and support
  • Strategies to share / defray liability
  • Surmount information management challenges, particularly under degraded conditions
• Higher fidelity Geo-fencing of hazard/warning alerts and localization and discrimination to avoid "crying wolf" syndrome and population overload from frequent alerts
• Engage the expertise and involvement of legal profession in city recovery and resilience efforts.
• Investments in public safety technologies should be backed by research and Pilot Tests as a community risk-reduction strategy

Next Steps for the Public Safety SuperCluster

In addition to developing this Blueprint for Smart Public Safety, the members of the GCTC Public Safety SuperCluster intend to continue engagement with Action Clusters of the GCTC that have projects of benefit to public safety, disaster response and recovery, and community preparedness. The goal for the PSSC is to continue to refine the Blueprint with input from PSSC Action Clusters, and engage new member cities and technology developers. Future initiatives include:

1. Participating via Action Clusters to address technology shortfalls in public safety. This involves expanding existing action clusters and starting new action clusters by developing new GCTC and PSSC member cities, assist in identifying funding sources, and building a multi-disciplinary team.
2. Adapting the Smart Public Safety solution guidance documentation to assist cities in planning and implementing a program within their respective cities.
3. Contingent upon the availability of resources, holding multi-regional table-top exercises for specific public safety scenarios that demonstrate action cluster capabilities and program guidance.

The initiative has four objectives and four next steps:

1. Identify capability gaps and national challenges in public safety that existing and maturing research projects among GCTC member communities and technology firms can address;

NEXT STEP #1 - Finalize and Publish the Blueprint for Smart Public Safety for Connected Communities and begin work with Action Clusters on a detailed Playbook for implementing in pilot communities.

1. Establish a forum for nurturing integrated, multi-disciplinary research in public safety strategies and technologies with input from first responders, emergency planners, and community leaders;

NEXT STEP #2 - Work with the PSSC Membership and associated Action Clusters to establish regular meetings for bringing representatives across whole Communities together to share improvements to the Blueprint and Playbook.

1. Identify opportunities to collaborate with state, county, and municipal partners to define requirements and validate approaches for enhancing community resilience and responding to and recovering from disasters and civil emergencies.

NEXT STEP #3 - Begin a Public-Private-Partnership consultative process to assist municipalities with planning, funding and implementing the “Smart Public Safety” Program.

1. Identify opportunities for supporting programs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education—engaging students and emerging scientists and professionals to nurture the next generation of researchers, technologists, and practitioners dedicated to research and technology development in the interest of public safety.

NEXT STEP #4 - Working through our Academia & research partners, build a STEM education plan for "Smart Public Safety" for the “Whole Community” initiative.