The data difference — better decisions and efficiency

Adding data to voice boosts efficiency, safety and the bottom line.

Whether your operations are business or mission critical, data can add significant value. Real-time information provides the vital link needed to make better decisions and operate more efficiently. Utilising data can minimise costs by reducing the amount of time spent retrieving or filling information, but also by lowering network usage (compared to voice), allowing for expansion or other activities without the need to add extra capacity, thus avoiding additional CAPEX and OPEX costs.

Users nearly always carry a radio, so why not use it to generate efficiency and benefits for operations? This can be done either by using applications on the radio or by attaching a tablet or PC to the radio to provide a secure and cost-effective means of communication.

Utilising data can improve the speed and accuracy of communication, providing clarity, brevity and an auditable trail, as well as reducing the margin for human error.

Clarity of communication aids good and rapid decision-making and, combined with timely inputs from the field that can be automatically processed and distributed, provides a real-time view of progress and an overview of the activities being monitored.

Routine tasks and processes can be automated to save time and ensure predictability: using applications can support existing processes, streamline field work and automatically present the information needed at each step, leading to a more efficient workflow, and helping to enforce processes and ensure quality.

Integrating the collected or distributed data with IT systems provides an opportunity to use analytics and automated intelligence to improve operational efficiency and overall customer satisfaction.

Applications drive efficiency

Most modern PMR radios have large sunlight-visible displays and an ability to host applications, using either text messages, IP data or both to provide a communications platform. IP packet data is not always the optimal delivery mechanism for applications on narrowband networks; messaging (text, binary data, and status) with group delivery for radio-efficient communications can also be used. Choosing the right transport mechanism for the application can result in a very responsive and rapid service.

Table 1 shows how both narrowband and broadband data can provide a service for the typical types of application used by professional radio users. Most applications can be realised over narrowband networks if the right bearer is used and the application is ‘smart’ regarding the data it transfers or — more importantly — doesn’t transfer across the air, resulting in very low-latency transaction times (eg, one or two seconds).

Table 1.

Equally, these applications can also be realised on wideband and broadband (eg, 2G, 3G, 4G) networks. Solutions can enable both narrowband and broadband solutions to be deployed in parallel, each application using the bandwidth in an optimal way to provide the best service possible.

Efficiency savings from using data

When used to access back-office data, traditional voice communications usually involve multiple transactions between the person in the control room and the person using the radio; the person in the control room searches for the relevant data and reads out the results to the radio user.

This has two disadvantages: it takes two people to complete the task and also there is a high chance of inaccuracy due to missed or misheard data when it is verbally relayed.

This sort of transaction is shown in Figure 1, and can take a minute or more to complete, depending on the amount of data to be relayed and how much repetition is required to ensure that all the data is captured.

Figure 1.

A typical database query from an application running on a radio goes directly to the back-end systems without intermediaries and is usually contained within one text message, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

When these two processes are overlaid, there is a large difference in the time and resources it takes to achieve the same goal; the application is much faster and uses significantly less network capacity and resources.

In the first case, the voice channel is used for approximately 55 seconds and by two people, whereas the second application uses only two text messages and the transaction is completed in approximately 11 seconds. This makes the application 10 times more efficient.

Some requests are repeated by personnel many times each day, multiplying the benefits of using data and the return on investment for doing so. If this activity were used 2000 times per day, the daily saving would be 55 hours of effort, when compared to using voice. That’s the equivalent of six extra people working every day.

Application projects are also relatively low cost, with disproportionately large savings in expensive time and resources. The benefits can be substantial when time and network costs are included — in some cases 40% or more of total benefits are from data and apps on a network. The cumulative benefits of replacing voice with voice and data are high (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

The following case studies show the range and scope of possibilities for applications — in particular, querying or pushing data to back-end systems — across a range of sectors.

UK police stop and search

Police officers have to complete a lot of forms during the course of their policing duties; recording their encounters with the public is vital for accountability but the paperwork can sometimes be more time-consuming than the actions it sets out to verify. Any initiative that cuts down on form-filling — yet gathers information accurately and efficiently — will make officers more effective and give them more time to focus on actual policing.

An application enables Greater Manchester Police officers to collect stop and search data on their radios by responding to a series of simple prompts on the screen. This makes data collection efficient and more accurate. The application then integrates with back-office systems to transmit the data automatically, reducing administration and, thus, saving money. Speeding up the procedure also reduces inconvenience for people who are stopped and enhances officer safety.

Greater Manchester Police calculate that the reductions in paperwork and administration will generate savings of £700,000 per year.

French railways

TETRA radios help SNCF minimise costs, accelerate communications, reduce human error and improve customer satisfaction.

SNCF is using applications on its TETRA radios to broadcast prerecorded announcements, update information panels on platforms, streamline train preparation and despatch, and make train shunting much safer.

In many cases, the data messages replace instructions spoken into an analog radio or shouted to a colleague, enabling more efficient communication. In other cases, applications update back-end systems directly, eliminating the need to relay information from the platform to a third party for data entry.

Information transmitted by the applications directly updates SNCF’s back-end systems, making it much easier to carry out post-event monitoring and performance reporting, based on the more complete and accurate data. SNCF can easily see, for example, how long it takes to carry out individual operations during the train preparation process, how many trains leave each station on time and which station a train has reached.

2010 FIFA World Cup

The challenge facing the Johannesburg 2010 Organising Committee in the run-up to the World Cup was to ensure that it could efficiently deal with almost any eventuality. Swift, reliable communications were the key to managing incident response and service delivery throughout the games.

Applications were deployed on TETRA radios that enabled users at multiple venues to simultaneously submit standardised status updates and incident reports to the Johannesburg Joint Command Centre.

Users sending messages from handheld radios to the control centre could choose from a series of specially customised short data messages grouped into medical, security, fire and logistics events — including status updates on venue capacity — designed in anticipation of the situations or incidents that could occur.

As well as minimising voice traffic on the TETRA network — freeing channels for high-priority calls — every communication was automatically captured and logged for analysis and review.

Messages were categorised according to severity or type of incident, making it easy for radio dispatchers to identify and prioritise those that required action. What’s more, each message, the venue from which it was sent and the identity of the user was automatically captured. Fast, accurate intelligence helped dispatchers respond swiftly to emergency situations or take action to prevent potential incidents.

Gaining minute-by-minute updates from venues on everything from logistics to medical emergencies proved the key to maintaining smooth operations throughout the event.

Parliament of India

The parliament need field-based and control room staff to have fast, straightforward access to critical information to help them carry out public safety and security operations.

The information comes from a number of sources, including back-end applications, legacy IT systems and command and control systems. To improve situational awareness, parliament staff members need to be able to share and coordinate information with other safety and security users over a variety of networks and devices.

Data applications — including image transfer, alerting and instant messaging, multinetwork messaging and mobile querying — allow information retrieval on a network-agnostic data services platform. All these applications run efficiently over both the parliament’s TETRA network, as well as other commercial mobile networks, meaning that whether users have TETRA terminals or mobile phones they have the same quick and easy access to the information they need. Users can also send messages between TETRA radios and GSM phones.

This solution has increased the availability of critical information to parliament staff, improving security, enhancing decision-making and accelerating emergency response times. The parliament also deploys data applications with text and images for everyday access control and VIP support at its secure complex in the heart of New Delhi.

BMW production

BMW’s manufacturing plant in Dingolfing, Germany, is the company’s largest production site, manufacturing the BMW 5, 6 and 7 Series.

When maintenance repairs to a production line are quickly addressed, output and revenue are quickly restored to optimum levels, so BMW wanted to replace and improve the automatic fault notification system in the production line to gain more efficiency.

This was achieved through an entirely automatic fault notification solution that unifies voice and data and improves efficiency within the plant. Whenever a fault occurs on the production line, the maintenance team receives an automatic message via an application on their TETRA terminals; a team member must then accept the job manually. If no team representative is able to accept, the system resends the SDS up to three times, after which the request is escalated to a supervisor, who then decides who should take on the task.

The application considerably simplifies job allocation by minimising the number of interactions needed to accept or reject a job. It also provides automatic registration of job acceptance on the server, with confirmation being sent to the user on allocation.

European Union presidency

During Finland’s EU presidency, a significant element of police duties centred on monitoring convoys. Instant messaging was used on both TETRA and GSM networks; with support, agents were able to message between the two technologies, enabling real-time status updates and freeing voice channels for emergency calls.

Instant messaging was also used to secure meeting places and visitor accommodation and to effect vehicle and person check-outs.