Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service upgrades control room communications

With recent significant flooding across the UK indicating how resilient emergency response capabilities have never been more critical, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service has taken steps to bolster its response capabilities by deploying a cloud-hosted control room solution (CRS) designed to streamline workflows and improve operational scalability during critical incidents.

Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service operates 17 community fire stations in the north-east of England covering a population of more than one million. It leads the operational delivery of fire and rescue, including public protection, emergency prevention and resilience, for the five local authority areas of Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and Sunderland. Its core responsibilities include responding to primary and secondary fires, road traffic collisions, civil emergencies, water and structural rescues, and delivering fire safety advice to residents and businesses.

The new cloud-hosted CRS response system from Motorola Solutions has been implemented to foster digitisation, streamline workflows and offer the agency the ability to better scale operations in critical situations such as flooding and wildfires, which have increased in frequency in the UK in recent years.

“Our objective is to create one of the safest communities in the country. We are amongst the fastest responding fire and rescue services in the UK for dwelling fires, with an average response time of five minutes 58 seconds,” said Phil Clark, area manager for mobilising and digital transformation at Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service.

“We will continue to invest in new technologies and plan to offer other fire and rescue services the opportunity to join our newly created control room solution. In doing so, we’ll be able to seamlessly exchange information during joint operations, increase scalability to accommodate varying demand levels, and foster greater cooperation and faster responses in critical situations,” he added.

“Our relationship with Motorola Solutions will enable us to realise and deliver our operational vision, which will ultimately help to save lives and put Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service at the forefront of control room technology in the UK.”

The browser-based CRS has been built to enable staff to access the control room by securely logging on from any location to set up mobile command posts or provide remote support for incidents. The platform will also integrate Motorola Solutions’ CommandCentral Evidence software for storing and securely handling control room voice recordings, unifying critical communications and data in one platform, while also linking to the appropriate cases.

“Demand on the fire and rescue service has evolved over the years, and emergency services continue to respond to a wide range of complex incidents,” said Fergus Mayne, UK and Ireland country manager at Motorola Solutions. “Our cloud-hosted CRS benefits Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service with an intuitive and unified response system that integrates all communications into one efficient and resilient work environment.”