Understanding The Verticals Part 3: Enhancing Safety, Boosting Security, and Managing Emergencies
Let's check back in with Charlie’s connected lifestyle
While Charlie was in the office, he received a notification from the smart home system that FedEx dropped a package for him and it is at his next-door neighbor per Charlie’s previous standing instructions. Specifically, the FedEx courier’s photo, a photo of the package, and a link for tracking of the delivery were forwarded to Charlie.
In addition, Charlie received an event reminder that he is scheduled for a citywide emergency management drill later in the day. He is a volunteer at his neighborhood fire station as an EMS first responder.
Charlie took the scheduled car service (Uber ride) to his client’s office for a meeting and on concluding his meeting, took another car service to his neighborhood Fire Station for the citywide emergency preparedness and management drill exercise. The objective of the exercise is to minimize the number of causality during a major citywide disaster. The drill included ten fire stations, five police precincts, two hospitals, five clinics, twelve emergency medical service (EMS) teams, 200 citizens, city emergency management office, mission command and control centers, emergency communications infrastructure, social media platforms, etc.
As a result of Charlie’s EMS volunteer participation, his smartphone has been loaded with 1st responder's (e.g., EMTs, firefighters, police, etc.) emergency apps, his EMS vehicle has been equipped with sensors for location detection, on-board GPS has mapped out the best route to the disaster location, where to park for optimum EMS support, health sensors for patients when on-board and will forward vital patient data ahead en-route to the hospital; and where next for Charlie’s EMS vehicle is needed for support.
Note, during the second half of Charlie’s day, he has traversed (seamlessly with enhanced user experience) between multiple smart city verticals, namely, transportation (car service, smart parking), safety & security (smart home), emergency management, city government (open data), and IoT infra (communications, connectivity, data, cloud, security, analytics).
However, this week (Understanding the Verticals Part 3), we’re going to highlight two verticals – safety & security and emergency management.
Safety & Security Vertical
Challenges
The public safety of citizens, organizations, economic and city government capabilities to render public services are the major “givens” that citizens expect (i.e., safeguard from threats) from their city officials. Citizens think of safety and security from the viewpoints of malicious attacks, terrorist attacks, cyber attacks, accidents (e.g., infrastructure mishaps, fires, transportation accidents, environmental pollution, etc.), natural disasters, and disaster impacts on economy/financial institutions.
On the other hand, city government views safety and security from three lenses. First, safeguarding the citizens. Second, security of the city’s basic infrastructures such as economic (e.g., tourism), financial, transportation, energy, data, water and waste. Third, acquiring and retaining top notch 1st responders. Further, from an infrastructure perspective, security is intrinsic within each vertical and coordinated with the IoT infra building block (a.k.a. vertical).
An IoT technology capable public safety will enhance response time, improve 1st responder’s safety, and provide citywide digital surveillance solutions that would improve the safety and security aspiration of the citizens and its government.
Therefore, the goal is to advocate public safety and security solutions that will protect the citizen and city government infrastructure to avoid interruption of services, economic advancements, and citizen’s way of life.
Solutions within the safety & security vertical…
As you can see from the diagram below. The solutions within the safety and security vertical are numerous. One of the largest, and most newsworthy topics, of course, is cyber security.
Opportunities
According to the Markets and Markets Report, the global public safety and security market size is estimated to grow from USD 220.82 billion in 2015 to USD 370.64 billion by 2020. In addition, the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) survey of about 500 U.S. cities and counties concluded that 49% of respondents identified smart city technologies as a top priority in the public safety sector.
Emergency Management Vertical
Challenges
The focal points for emergency management are preparedness, rescues, and recovery. Consequently, a city’s office of emergency management needs to mitigate challenges that are associated with these three emergency management areas.
The preparedness challenges include an operational up-to-date and actionable emergency plan, adequate resources and access to neighboring and/or regional emergency resources, conducted with high efficacy up-to-date training and mock emergency drill exercises, centralized disaster/emergency and social data with secured open data access, aging infrastructures, and digital location and tracking of emergency management assets.
The impacts of these challenges are power outages, dangerous flooding, damaging wind disruptions, homes lost, and citizens displaced. As a result, the goal is to have the best emergency readiness capabilities such that quality and effectiveness of emergency response is continually improved.
During rescues, the primary challenge is the limited access to real-time disaster/emergency data to act on. This is where cognitive IoT will play a major role in smart emergency management systems.
The recovery challenges include long lead-time for completion of structural assessments, lack of social media infrastructure from which to interact with the city residents, and inability to leverage technology support for lessons learned from previous disasters or emergencies. The goals at the recovery phase are to re-build, assure safer community, and secure citizen involvement.
Solutions within the emergency management vertical
The diagram below presents many important smart energy management solutions that could change the way cities handle both wide spread and isolated emergencies.
Opportunities
According to the Markets and Markets Report, the incident and emergency management market size to grow from USD 88.58 billing in 2016 to USD 114.01 billion by 2021. On the other hand, the cost of one extreme disaster Hurricane Katrina where the damage was estimated to be up to USD 300 billion in direct damage and USD 1 trillion in total damage.