Subject: [NEXTEL-1] San Francisco International Airport

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2003 07:25:02 -0400

A secure investment

San Francisco International Airport is among the top dozen busiest airports in the
US, handling 31.5 million passengers in 2002. It hosts a total of 74 airlines, including 34 international carriers, making it one of the key gateways to the Pacific Rim.
The airport runs its own terminals and, unlike a number of other major US airports
where calls for service go downtown first and then back to the airport, San Francisco provides all public safety services from its own operational base, including police and fire dispatch, and airfield safety.
The airport's public safety command-and-control centre is in a section of San Francisco International Airport Operations. The San Francisco Police Department, the airport bureau and its firefighters and paramedics are also contracted to the airport from San Francisco's Fire Department.
The airport's command-and-control centre personnel handle dispatch for all public safety services, including the Airfield Safety team, who enforce Federal Aviation Regulations on the airfield. The public safety services assist airlines in establishing radio frequencies and also maintain public safety radio frequencies for the police, firefighters, airfield operations staff and maintenance workers.
Although homeland security initiatives are still in their infancy, Scott Hidy, San
Francisco's communications supervisor, is confident that they can be accommodated. While the airport security environment has intensified, he says:
"We have been able to adapt because everything they have thrown at us the system will do."
Since San Francisco made the decision to invest in new technology in 1995, it has transformed its communications infrastructure, automating and integrating its telephone, radio and command-and-control systems. The "system" Hidy refers to is Intergraph Public Safety's computer-aided dispatch (CAD) command-and-control software, a US$1.4 million investment for the airport. It has also been installed at a number of other US airports including Chicago O'Hare and Pittsburgh International.
Headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama and operating globally, Intergraph Public Safety specialises in critical incident management solutions. The CAD system integrates public safety operations by providing a platform or 'information hub' that receives, manages and reports information triggered by alarm sensors, radio messages, telephone calls or access control devices. Using CAD, airport security and communications personnel are able to view all facilities from one command centre - as well as keeping track of all events and multiple emergency services operations - using a digital map-based interface.
"We are able to do things a lot faster than we were before," says Hidy. "The resources are at our fingertips and the CAD system recommends what steps you should take during an incident. It has an intelligent map that allows you to bring up levels, and we have all of our floor plans on it. I can see everything that's around or above or below the location of the alarm or the event that is in progress."

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