Every day during this worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, public safety personnel and first responders face the challenge of having to maintain physical distancing. They also need to be able to do more with limited resources whilst maintaining the safety of front line personnel.
Public safety agencies must also be able to manage ever increasing volumes of data and respond to more complex crimes whilst dealing with siloed systems and communication solutions that do not communicate with each other.
“Public safety agencies require advanced technologies to manage this hive of complexity,” said Michael Kaae, Motorola Solutions Regional Vice-President for Europe while addressing an international media round table event held virtually.
Michael Kaae
“That’s why our company has developed an integrated ecosystem comprising mission-critical communications, managed services, software, secure analytics and support services. These are solutions which enable front line personnel to respond in the heat of the moment and to connect to a broader ecosystem of technologies to manage other tasks,” Kaae explained.
COVID-19’s impact on policing
The impact of COVID-19 on policing has on the one hand resulted in a reduction in traditional crimes being committed. On the other, the great lockdown has contributed to increases in domestic violence, online crime and cases of aggression against frontline and healthcare workers.
Ian Williams, a former Police Chief Inspector of the West Yorkshire Police and current Motorola Solutions employee told the press event that police resources globally had to adapt to COVID-19. In cases where police became infected with the virus, self isolation led to higher police absentee rates and created other challenges for public safety.
In the same way that all of us have acclimatised to remote working, police too have used new tools for incident management and more cloud-based solutions.
“We’ve seen moves toward smarter agility to protect front line personnel and mitigate the impact of COVID-19” said Williams.
Radio – A lifeline and insurance policy
In Williams’ 30 year policing career, two way radio has been every police officers’ lifeline and insurance policy. An instant, push-to-talk call from a radio can be a signal for help when dealing with a crisis situation.
While technologies have evolved considerably over the years – the fundamental capability of two-way radio to provide clear voice communication at the push of a button remains as relevant today as ever.
“For a police officer, their radio is an extension of their own body – especially when they are under fire. When you have your radio, you are not alone. You can concentrate on your job while knowing that help is always at hand,” said Williams.
For a police officer, their radio is an extension of their own body – especially when they are under fire. When you have your radio, you are not alone. You can concentrate on your job while knowing that help is always at hand.
“Looking to the future, radio will continue to evolve, but its use cases and primary functionality for voice communication will remain. Voice will continue to be the basis of mission-critical communications between officers and their command centres.”
To hear and be heard
From Williams’ experience of policing in the field, two-way radios must enable officers to clearly hear their colleagues on the ground and back at the command centre. It’s also essential to be heard above overwhelming background noise.
For instance, Williams recalled his role in maintaining public order at football matches at the Leeds United Football Club stadium, where boisterous fans of the home and away teams can get very emotional and sometimes even aggressive.
“The football crowd was very loud and we couldn’t even hear each other talking – but our radios still enabled clear voice communication with our colleagues and the control centre. “Radios have to be easy and intuitive to use, especially in times of stress,” said Williams.
“Today, our world is digitally enabled – so it’s also vital that the radio is connected with other equipment and devices that officers use, such as smartphones and body-worn video solutions. That’s essential when you consider that today’s new breed of officers have grown up in the digital world where smartphones are everywhere. When they join the police force, they expect hyper-connectivity from all of the devices they use,” he added.
Higher expectations
“Today’s graduates wanting to be police officers are looking for a career where they can give back to society – they want to do something that makes a difference,”said Clare Power, Director of Police Now, an organisation which collaborates with police forces across England and Wales to recruit and train outstanding graduates with the leadership potential to become detectives and police officers.
“Over the past five years, we have recruited over 1,500 graduates for front line policing roles across England and Wales.
“They want a career that provides variety and challenge, as well as high-quality training and development within their field. They want to be supported with the right equipment and technology and to develop and to grow in their field in a positive way. Policing delivers on against all of these needs and no two days of police work are ever the same,” she added.
Future of devices
“The future of our public safety devices is to support millennial and post-millennial generations with their technology needs,” said Katja Millard, Senior Director of Devices with Motorola Solutions.
To better understand their customers’ practical needs, Motorola Solutions’ product and design teams spend days riding with front-line first responders in the field to better understand the problems they face. Observing how they use and interact with technology helps the company to develop the most suitable solutions.
The future of our public safety devices is to support millennial and post-millennial generations with their technology needs.
A key requirement is ensuring buttons and controls on devices such as radios and body-cameras are intuitively placed and tactile, even when responders are wearing thick gloves. This enables first responders to operate devices wherever they are located on their bodies, often without even having to look at them. Intuitive technology helps them to stay focused on the job at hand, especially in the heat of the moment when front liners have no time or capacity to operate devices manually.
Voice and data interaction
With the increased use of voice and text messaging over narrowband channels together with data including pictures and video being shared via broadband, the level of data interactions is rising – especially before an incident occurs.
For example, sharing text messages and images about what or who to be on the lookout for tends to be more frequent than voice interactions before an incident occurs. In the heat of the moment, when officers are busy responding to an incident is where voice interactions spike and officers reach for their radios as the most essential tools of the trade. After the incident, data interactions return to their previous levels as officers start gathering and sharing evidence and writing their reports.
“Besides the need for clear audio, we also have designed our radios for data-intensive interactions – especially with the penetration of smartphones and laptop PCs to handle those pre and post-incident data interactions. That’s when lots of data is collected and passed between front and back-end systems. So It is important for these workflows to be as seamless as possible to make things easier for the officers,” said Millard.
Collaborative ecosystems
In the past, the first responders just operated their radios. Today, Motorola Solutions’ collaborative ecosystem has placed the radio in wireless communication with smartphones, sensors and other devices. Therefore officers could choose to control their radios via apps on their smartphones or in more traditional ways.
This kind of integration also enables automation. For example, an officer could push the emergency button on a radio to automatically trigger a body-worn video camera. That way, his or her colleagues in the control room can instantly see what’s going on and whether the officer is facing danger – even in situations where the officer is unable to communicate.
Motorola Solutions’ future plans are to keep building this collaborative ecosystem with further intelligent assistance connecting more devices securely together. Over time this will enable the triggering of more audio and video recording and further automation to streamline essential activities like incident report writing and transcription.
Motorola Solutions’ future plans are to keep building this collaborative ecosystem with further intelligent assistance connecting more devices securely together. Over time this will enable the triggering of more audio and video recording and further automation to streamline essential activities like incident report writing and transcription.
Enter the MXP600
The MPX600 RadioControl app
In keeping with the more complex environment for public safety professionals, Motorola Solutions expects its next generation TETRA portable radio, the MXP600, to address vital needs in the market.
The new radio was designed and developed in partnership with a number of the company’s public safety customers internationally including those in the Asia Pacific region. A key element of that customer feedback was to maintain and build on the primary voice functionality of two-way radio.
Consequently, the radio is small yet powerful, has a long battery life as well as innovative features to make voice communication clearer. Its Adaptive Wind Noise Mitigation feature enable first responders to hear and be heard clearly even in windy conditions.
Together with its M-RadioControl app, the MXP600 helps users to control key features of their radios via their smartphones while the device’s Over the Air programming enables software updates to be programed quickly and automatically without having to physically handle the device.
The recently launched MXP600 will be available for shipment across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and Asia-Pacific regions and Malaysia from 6 November 2020.
