Strathclyde
Fire and Rescue STEPS forward with Imass and Excelerate
Imass
Ltd
is delighted to announce that it has been awarded a
contract by Strathclyde Fire and Rescue (SFR) to supply
and implement its comprehensive Strategic Emergency
Planning Solution (STEPS) onto their forward command
vehicles. Imass
will be working with its business partner, Excelerate
Technology to provide STEPS integration with
Excelerate’s satellite communications, which is already
installed and operational on SFR’s forward command
vehicle's.
The
STEPS solution will be operational in both the Strathclyde
Silver Command Room in Johnstone and also on four Forward
Command and Support vehicles enabling SFR to share
emergency plans across multiple fixed and mobile
satellite-enabled sites in real-time.
Iain
Morris, Head of Technical Support and Logistics at
Strathclyde stated, “The main business attraction of the
STEPS solution is its simplicity of use.
When combined with the Excelerate wireless mesh
technology, we can be sure that in a multi-agency response
situation, Police, Fire and Ambulance crews can update a
shared plan, safe in the knowledge that the information
will be relayed in real time to all relevant response
units which are STEPS enabled, whether they are using
Smart Boards, PC’s or laptops.”
The
Imass STEPS solution, which was launched officially at the
2006 BAPCO exhibition, enables
organisations to associate pre-planned responses with any
location, building or geographical area.
As an incident (which can range from everyday
events, natural disasters, major incidents and terrorist
activities) evolves, STEPS also allows the dynamic aspects
of the incident to be recorded through either the ability
to take screen shots at any stage or via the Audit Trail
module. Customer
feedback during early deployment of STEPS has additionally
identified the potential of STEPS as a supporting tool for
training.
Jeremy
Valentine, Imass Business Development Manager for STEPS
commented, “We are delighted to move forward our STEPS
product with Strathclyde Fire and Rescue.
The core STEPS product provides the user with a
simple and intuitive map based user interface and
customisation capabilities.
Various mapping data sets can be incorporated
including Ordnance Survey Master Map and aerial mapping.
STEPS allows users to create points of interest
which can be classified and associate with them various
types of information.
Users can place icons, cordons, overlays, CAD
drawings and incorporate their own and other agencies data
sets. Search
capabilities of points of interest are also provided
allowing the Incident Commander to identify those
locations or buildings of a specific nature.
“The
demands placed on Public Safety organisations continue to
increase, influenced by the scale of response they now
need to plan for. Many
types of incidents, and certainly those that are
catastrophic necessitate a multi agency response, which
increases the requirement for dependable data sharing
capabilities. Coupled
with advances in IT and communications technology, the
Imass solutions continue to evolve taking advantage of the
technology not for its own sake but to meet the demanding
business requirements of Emergency Response organisations.
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