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Regional dispatch service for CFA

Posted by Mark Schroffel CFA Member

Monday, 08 February 2010

Funding has been approved for CFA to establish a regional radio dispatch service that will provide regional CFA brigades with high quality voice communications to the ESTA computer aided dispatch operators.

The new service will be a significant advance in regional dispatch communications and emergency response management. VICSES will also be subscribed to service; this will provide a consistent dispatch process across the agencies.

The project will procure a digital radio service that will be accessed by the new radio terminals to be implemented through the Radio Replacement Project.

Rod Johnston, the Project Director the Regional Dispatch Service (RDS), says that:

“…while the project in still in the early stages of establishment; a significant amount of work is underway to identify user requirements and to establish an implementation plan that will see the RDS in service in 2012.”

Rod also advised that the Project will be consulting widely with CFA, VICSES and ESTA stakeholders prior to making any major decisions about operational requirements. In the meantime an Expression of Interest (EOI) will be released in March 2010 to identify potential service providers and solution options.

The Project will provide regular updates on CFA Connect and through other channels.

Please forward any enquiries about the RDS Project to Tenia Vergos on (03) 9262 8277 or rds@cfa.vic.gov.au

Regional Dispatch Service FAQs

What is happening?
The Regional Dispatch Service (RDS) Project has been established to procure a radio communications service that will provide ESTA, CFA and SES with a regional radio dispatch capability. This means that in the future, all CFA Brigades and SES Units will have reliable dispatch radio communications with a 24/7 Computer Aided Dispatch Centre (CAD).

What are the benefits?
The benefits of this new capability include reducing the risk to emergency services personnel and the public by providing improved dispatch communications and inter-agency coordination.

How will the RDS be implemented?
To achieve the RDS objective it is envisaged that CFA will contract a telecommunications service from a provider that has the ability provide and manage service infrastructure and ensure a quality of service.

When will the RDS be ready?
It is expected that the RDS will be introduced into service from 2011 following the introduction of new radios by the Radio Replacement Project. The project is currently investigating service requirements and service delivery options, once these are finalised a firm timeline will be announced.

What will change?
Apart from having regional radio communications to the CAD, it is expected that new service will introduce consistent processes for the dispatch of CFA Brigades and VICSES Units.

The change to regional dispatch service will mean that there will be marked improvement in regional dispatch communications, with all brigades being brought up to Category 1 dispatch standards. This will eliminate the operational requirement for telephones and other methods currently used to update CAD.

The RDS will be a digital service that will be implemented to the APCO P25 Digital Radio Protocol and will not be compatible with the current analogue radio equipment. New radios will be provided by the Radio Replacement Project and the introduction into service will be managed to ensure a smooth transition from the old analogue service to the new digital service. The service will not be encrypted and it is expected that members of the public may still listen-in to CFA dispatch traffic using compatible digital receiving equipment.

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Digital Radios and scanners
written by Peter Grant, February 08, 2010

With the indication that CFA are proposing to move to digital radio systems in 2011, and the statement here that are current analogue scanners will no longer work, is there any intent to simultaneously deliver a cost-effective replacement to the many in our community (Brigases, the families of Brigade members, Community Fireguard groups, etc) that have already invested in analague scanners and rely on these.

Digital scanners are still significantly more expensive than analague systems and, for many, the cost may be prohibitive.

Communications with our community is already an issue getting considerable airplay in other forums and I hope we are proactive in managing this one. It is unlikely this change will be accepted by the broader community without comment - yet nothing I have seen to date suggests this fairly obvious issue is being addressed

Scanners
written by tom morley, February 08, 2010

I don't think cheap scanners should hold a strong part of the decision making process with new communications equipment and networks. The price of new scanning equipment will lower over time as competition in the market place expands. There are always other means on seeking information when required.

It would be better to put consideration into a comm's system that also aids in managing resources and tracking their locations. Maybe there will be no more lost strike teams or resources turning up when they are not planned.

...
written by James Witham, February 08, 2010

Here here to Tom Morley's comments. The CFA radio system is not designed for usage by anyone other than CFA personnel and is used (transmit, not just receive) by some other Firefighting agencies (MFB, DSE, FIB's). Therefore, what's best for the users (and of course as always, budget) should dictate what kind of communications system we operate.

There are several other ways of communicating with other parties (press releases, phone calls to family members e.t.c.) information that they need to know. This is because it is not an expectation that these people will have Scanners/Listening sets. If you need to listen, you will have (access to) a CFA radio, if you want to listen, fork out for the equipment yourself. Afterall, it's not like the Government pays for (AM/FM) Radios/TV's so citizens can watch the ABC.

.....
written by John Remington, February 08, 2010

while i agree with the comments above , one should also see an acknowledge the other side of the coin ,

the use use of "cheap " receivers or scanners is used in some community's where the flow of information is needed , these areas rely on the info that is passed over the radio as a gauge of what the situation is and what the actions should be ie.stay or leave , the information that is passed across the website or in the media is not as up to date as one would expect or hope , this came to light in the tragic black Saturday , it is amazing that while marysville was literally burning down around them the information passed over was that it "may" come under direct attack , and it was not till the morning after the authority's or the media knew the extent of what had happened , but i digress , back on the topic , i think it could be detrimental to the CFA and the home owners and residents of these areas to have the CFA go digital , where by the situation of the police , people didnt realy need to know what was going on , the CFA has need for people to know ,

as for the price dropping comment , this will not happen with the new radios , the new radios will hold their price $995.00 is dollars how ever second hand ones will and have dropped , you can now get a s/hand digital for $300-400 in some places

The community ARE users
written by Geoff Schmidt, February 09, 2010

In response to James Witham, what people are asking for is to ensure that the general community with scanners ARE considered users of the CFA comms system. There will always be a delay between someone on the fireground submitting a sitrep, and the website getting updated. This delay can be longer than the speed of fires, especially if incident controllers continue to have a bias towards under-estimating the speed of fires (refer to previous articles on CFA Connect for the research). Therefore, scanners need to be part of the available defense toolkit of the community.

I don't see this discussion as cheap vs expensive, as prices will come down as demand goes up. The discussion is more around encrypted vs unencrypted transmissions, and ensuring that the general community can tap into what is happening in their area.

P25 System
written by Nathan Jolly, February 09, 2010

I think, times are a changing and as i've said before else where it isn't up to CFA to provide scanners as part of the change, you should have a pager that should supply you with enough infomation and if you require more then what's stopping you from heading down to the fire station to listen to the radio there, or contact someone whom has access to a CFA P25 radio to get the information required, there is no point whinging about it, its going to happen weather you like it or not. they way i see it this new system will stamp out the rouge operators out there that are using analogue radios such as amateur rigs that aren't part of the CFA radio network.

...
written by Peter Grant, February 09, 2010

I think Geoff has concisely put the point - the reality we need to deal with is the Commmunity DOES have scanners and, certainly outside the urban areas, uses these effectively to manage their risk. We (the CFA in general) have been taken to task in the Commission re our management of communications with our communities and, while the use of scanners to actively ascertain what is going on, has yet to come up, I am sure it will if we do not reflect the needs of this stakeholder group.

Misunderstanding??
written by Ken O'Brian, February 09, 2010

I think many of you have missed the point to some extent.
Tom Morley - "There are always other means on seeking information when required."
James Witham - "the CFA radio system is not designed for usage by anyone other than CFA personnel... If you need to listen, you will have (access to) a CFA radio."
Nathan Jolly - "you should have a pager that should supply you with enough infomation and if you require more then what's stopping you from heading down to the fire station to listen to the radio there."

Not one of these comments shows any understanding of the fact that rural CFA brigades operate much differently to urban brigades.

For starters, not all rural firefighters do have pagers - in fact there are still a number of brigades that don't have them. These brigades still use the telephone or scanners/listening sets/UHF CB radios to advise each other of fire activity in the area.
You need to realise that just because there is a certain way that your brigade does things, that this doesn't mean that all brigades across the state are capable of doing it your way.

Putting that argument aside, though, there are a few key questions I have about this system.

Firstly, given the atrocity that is called digital television and the fact that it is not yet reliable in wide-open regional areas of the state (let alone in the ranges), how are they going to guarantee that the system actually works across the state?

Secondly, how are they going to ensure that this system actually improves coverage in the ranges of the otways and other areas where the current system doesn't work reliably?

Thirdly, why do we really need digital in the first place? Personal or sensitive information should never be transmitted over the radio, so why do we need to hide what is being said? Would the money not be better invested in installing additional repeater stations in black spot areas to increase the coverage of the existing system? I'm certain we would get a much better system at a fraction of the cost by adding to something that really isn't broken than by trying to replace it with new (untested) technology.

...
written by Rodney Johnston, February 11, 2010

Hello everyone,

Thank you for sharing your views and highlighting some of your concerns.

One of the important issues raised in this discussion thread is the future of the use of listening sets and scanners by CFA Members and the community. This reinforces the requirement for the project to gain a full appreciation of the needs of regional Brigade Members and the communities that they support. While our focus is on implementing a service that meets dispatch needs across the state, we are very conscious of the broader issue of community communications. We will keep Members informed of any developments in this area. In the meantime, we want to assure everyone that there is no intention to encrypt the service, and that CFA communications will be accessible to anyone with appropriate digital equipment.

The RDS is in the early stages of investigation the available solutions and we will keep everyone one informed as soon as we have clarity over the direction the CFA intends to take for regional dispatch. It will take some time to work through the service options; however it is base requirement that the solution provides all informed mobile radio coverage across each region.

I hope that you agree that this is an important initiative that will provide parity of service to regional areas, and will provide CFA with opportunity to unify its operations across the state.

We appreciate your interest in the project and look forward to hearing your views.

Regards,

Rod Johnston
Project Director
Regional Dispatch Service

P25 Network
written by Nathan Jolly, February 11, 2010

Rod
are you able to tell us if it will be a P25 Trunking Network or a P25 conventional repeater network????
Thanks Nathan

P25 Trunking or Conventional?
written by Rodney Johnston, February 12, 2010

The Regional Dispatch Service project will be asking vendors to provide a service that faciliates communication between CFA or VICSES members and ESTA operators. The vendor's proposal will address the project's requirements for the service and propose a solution which would most likely be a conventional network, but might be a trunking network.

The RDS project will provide further advice to members on this as soon as we can after proposals are received.

Regards,

Rod Johnston
Project Director
Regional Dispatch Service

Reply
written by James Witham, March 12, 2010

Not one of these comments shows any understanding of the fact that rural CFA brigades operate much differently to urban brigades."

For starters, not all rural firefighters do have pagers - in fact there are still a number of brigades that don't have them. These brigades still use the telephone or scanners/listening sets/UHF CB radios to advise each other of fire activity in the area.
You need to realise that just because there is a certain way that your brigade does things, that this doesn't mean that all brigades across the state are capable of doing it your way.

Not a single CFA Brigade doesn't have an allocation of EAS pagers. Not all urban brigade members have pagers either, we may have an increased quantity but the ratio of pagers to members can be the same. We do the same thing that every Brigade (urban or rural) should do and allocate the pagers to the people who are most often available/turnout. You just mentioned 2 alternative methods of communicating between members (telephone and UHF CB) to obtain information that may be needed, other than listening sets/scanners.

Firstly, given the atrocity that is called digital television and the fact that it is not yet reliable in wide-open regional areas of the state (let alone in the ranges), how are they going to guarantee that the system actually works across the state?

Through coverage planning, field testing and user feedback. TV is a commercial system with different guidelines and doesn't have to cover all areas the same as Emergency Services Radio does. Besides, there is always Satellite TV access for those that can't get Terrestrial site coverage.

Secondly, how are they going to ensure that this system actually improves coverage in the ranges of the otways and other areas where the current system doesn't work reliably?

I can't give the guarantees that they possibly can but it's likely areas like this will never be covered 100%. Unfortunately, funding currently and will always dictate how good coverage is in areas such as this. Digital doesn't mean the coverage will worsen, in fact, instead of holding off on additional current analogue infrastructure, Comms may get funding and certainty that will allow them to increase coverage in such areas.

{quote}Thirdly, why do we really need digital in the first place? Personal or sensitive information should never be transmitted over the radio, so why do we need to hide what is being said? Would the money not be better invested in installing additional repeater stations in black spot areas to increase the coverage of the existing system? I'm certain we would get a much better system at a fraction of the cost by adding to something that really isn't broken than by trying to replace it with new (untested) technology.

You're confusing Digital Radio with an optional feature, 'Encryptyion'. Only Police use this in the Metropolitan Area. Ambulance Metro and the MFB use Digital Radio's without encryption and therefore, if one *wants* to listen to them, they can with the appropriate equipment. Digital with give better voice quality (I disagree with you and say that the current analogue technology is often ___, especially from Portables) aswell as other features, such as better radio management (remote firmware/channel updates e.t.c.), possibility of GPS/AVL being integrated and utilised (so the comms centre/RECCs/ICCs can see where appliances are), radio ID (so we can tell who is talking - useful in heaps of situations).

This technology has been proven many times over around the world including Australia, in fact, it is the technology used by our Metro cousins right here in Victoria. Improved coverage will be good but why not have the best of both worlds and go Digital and reap the benefits this technology has to offer aswell.

Update from the RDS Project Team
written by Mark Schroffel, March 16, 2010

Thank you everyone for taking an interest in this project and for providing your thoughts and debating the issues. From these discussions we can see that there are range of issues to be worked through and clarified, and that there is fair amount of interest in the new dispatch service.

By way of a quick update please see the following points below:

- The project is preparing for the release of an Expression of Interest (EOI) for the provision of a Regional Radio Dispatch Service. It’s expected to be released by the end of this month and will give us a strong indication of how our requirements can be met by the communications industry.

- The project has identified 160 stakeholder requirements; these define the requirements for the EOI.

- Service providers will need to meet core CFA requirements including:
oFull Regional Coverage
oAn all-informed digital service
oUpgrading all of Regional Victoria to Category 1 Dispatch

Thanks again to everyone for contributing to the discussion.

Mark Schröffel
Change & Training Manager
Radio Dispatch Service Project
Technology Services

CFA
8 Lakeside Drive
Burwood East VIC 3151

Telephone: (03) 9262 8887
Facsimile: (03) 9262 8633
Mobile: 0457 411 182