Enhanced information service for emergency calls (EISEC) and advanced mobile location (AML) data from emergency calls help fire control personnel to identify the location of most emergency callers. AML may locate emergency callers to an accuracy of as little of 3m. The compatibility and configuration of mobilising systems determines whether fire control personnel can receive EISEC and AML information during a remote emergency call.
Geographical information systems (GIS)Â covering the UK provide fire control personnel with a visual representation of areas outside their normal area of responsibility and helps them to determine the accurate location of those emergency callers and the incidents they are reporting. GIS with zoom layers that clearly display premises numbers and street names will provide the most useful information to fire control personnel.
Regularly updated GIS provide fire control personnel with accurate and relevant information to support effective remote call management.
Gazetteer records covering remote areas that are accurate and current offer an effective method for recording remote incidents. Owing to the volume of data required, it may not be possible for all mobilising systems to access premises-level gazetteer records covering the whole of the UK. Some mobilising systems may:
- Provide fire control personnel with access to UK-wide gazetteer records, covering:
- The names of all cities, towns, villages, hamlets and boroughs, but not necessarily names of individual streets
- Street-level gazetteer records, including the names of streets, but not the numbers of individual premises
- Allow for the manual addition of locations to gazetteers, such as remote cities, towns or county areas, to enable fire control personnel to select the nearest appropriate location on which to base their remote incident record
- Allow fire control personnel to create incidents directly from GIS during a remote emergency call, enabling them to add more address details to the incident log
Mobilising systems, such as cloud-hosted systems, may allow for GIS and gazetteer records to be regularly updated with little or no manual intervention.
Other tools are available that may help fire control personnel to manage emergency calls outside their normal area of responsibility by:
- Pinpointing the location of an emergency caller or the emergency they are reporting, providing map co-ordinates or a unique identifier for their location
- Improving the situational awareness of fire control personnel, allowing them to view live video from an emergency caller’s mobile phone
These tools may be accessed separately from the mobilising system, such as through a web browser or application, or they may be integrated with the mobilising system. Tools that are integrated with the mobilising system may help fire control personnel to access them quickly and provide an audit trail of their use in the mobilising system logs.