Subject: [NEXTEL-1] US DOJ-New Initiatives in Incident Management from a Public Safety Viewpoint

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2003 02:32:20 -0400

New Initiatives in Incident Management from a Public Safety Viewpoint

A Discussion with Richard Jacques
Richard Jacques can be reached at [email-masked]
Senior Program Manager
National Institute of Justice

(Last updated 8/1/03)

The phrase "incident management" has a specific meaning to many transportation
operations professionals, but their perspective is only part -- perhaps a
relatively small part -- of the total picture. "First responders," including
public safety agencies, play the lead role at many major incident scenes. What
next-generation incident-management technologies are these agencies currently
investigating, and will -- or should -- these systems interface with advanced
transportation management systems (ATMS)? ICDN Editor Jerry Werner recently
discussed these issues and the increasingly important role that Critical Incident
Management Systems (CIMS) will play for the public-safety community with Richard
Jacques of the National Institute of Justice. NIJ is spearheading several related
initiatives, which will increasingly involve linkages with both the transportation
community and traffic data.

ICDN: I understand that NIJ recently concluded an investigation into the features
and functionality of the software found in emergency management operation centers.
Tell me more about that project.

Jacques: The CIMS (Critical Incident Management Systems) project basically
involved an impartial assessment by practitioners
of the various commercially available technology platforms that are in the
marketplace for managing critical incidents. The term
"CIMS" is used to denote the software found in emergency management operation
centers, which supports the management of
crisis information and the corresponding response by public safety agencies.
Ten products were evaluated in a test bed at the District of Columbia Emergency
Management Agency and were objectively
evaluated on over 600 detailed functional and technical criteria in a near
real-world testbed environment. Each of the technologies
essentially provide public safety personnel with information and data regarding
incidents, such as the incident's location, type,
traffic conditions, whether hazardous materials were involved, whether other
vehicles, trucks, or rail were involved, and other
factors. These technologies and platforms are developed to provide real-time
information awareness of an incident, its location,
and all of the information that one would need -- including weather data -- so
that agencies can respond with the appropriate assets.

ICDN: What was the objective of this CIMS initiative?

Jacques: The CIMS Testbed was established to provide rigorous "honest broker"
functional and technical evaluations of
commercial software available to state and local emergency management agencies
(EMAs) responding to critical incidents, or in
their planning and mitigation activities. The ultimate objective was to provide a
tool that can be used by state and local agencies
that are considering purchasing or acquiring any of those platforms. Consequently,
the end product for practitioners was what is
referred to as "The Crisis Information Management Software (CIMS) Feature
Comparison Matrix" (FCM). [CIMS Project Feature Comparison Report]

That Matrix is an interactive tool to help determine which incident management
package would be best for a given agency,
recognizing that each locality has a unique set of requirements. This tool allows
them to match those requirements against the
various vendors' products that they are considering. Instead of just getting
information from each vendor that emphasizes the
merits of their system and its capabilities, practitioners and their purchasing
agents can use this tool to truly evaluate how the
vendors' claims stack up against their particular needs or requirements. In
addition, they can use our evaluation of those ten products as further support for
their decisions.

ICDN: Was this evaluation conducted by your staff or by outside users?

Jacques: Practitioners, primarily local public safety personnel, were instrumental
in developing the tool and doing the evaluations.
They conducted a hands-on evaluation of the commercial software products, using
rigorously developed criteria that included
system functionality and product support needs. For example, in the System
Environment area, the focus was on the system
environment features, such as hosting models (e.g., LAN, ASP, or Hybrid), server
and client software installation,
communication/integration, etc. This portion also covers the system security
parameters. The tool looked at the functional features
of each product, such as the ability to manage different types of events, generate
an event log, and support planning and reporting.
The technical support offered by the vendors, such as a help desk and hours of
operation was another area within the evaluation
matrix.

ICDN: Do you know if any of those software systems could accommodate real-time
traffic data?

Jacques: I believe that several of them indicated that they could adapt their
systems to accept live data feeds, but they do not have that capability
"out-of-the-box." As a matter of fact, taking in external data was seen as one of
the areas that required further work.

ICDN: When was this project completed?

Jacques: The final closeout of the project was in May 2003; the primary report on
the testing and evaluation was issued in October 2002.

ICDN: Do you anticipate having a follow-on project?

Jacques: Yes. We are getting ready to start a second test bed, which will
hopefully occur this September/October in Arlington,
Virginia. We will test a number of products that were not evaluated in the first
round and anticipate that a number of the same
vendors will have made upgrades.

ICDN: What will be the exact location of that test?

Jacques: It will be in Arlington County's Public Safety Building. We wanted to
still have it in the Washington, DC area so that
other public officials and representatives from multiple State and local agencies
could actually see and participate in the evaluation.

ICDN: Do you anticipate that different tests will be involved to analyze new or
different product features?

Jacques: We will use the same format and the same technical criteria that we used
in the first evaluation and, again, we will have
practitioners run the Feature Comparison Matrix evaluation tool against the
various products. Additionally, we will be defining the
EMA Emergency Response Organization (ERO) Critical Incident Management information
exchange requirements needed to
promote data interoperability between various CIMS applications and Critical
Incident Management organizations. These
requirement definitions will consist of XML data element dictionaries and XML
schemas representing key data sets that need to
be exchanged between Critical Incident Management organizations.
This task will focus on one specific data exchange area: data that is contained in
the Incident Command System (ICS) form set.
These forms contain critical information about an ongoing incident (emergency),
and are used to communicate this information
between various responders and incident commanders involved in a particular
incident.

ICDN: I assume that you'll update your report comparing these products, right?

Jacques: A second report will be issued, absolutely.

ICDN: Tell me more about the test bed itself. Does the phrase "test bed" literally
mean there is a testing facility in a lab somewhere?

Jacques: There is actually a lab where the programs are installed on laptop
computers for practitioners to measure the products
against the Feature Comparison Matrix.

ICDN: Is this evaluation done with the vendors' cooperation?

Jacques: Yes. Their participation is voluntary, but the vendors welcome the
opportunity simply because we give them important
feedback about their products.

ICDN: Did the vendors dispute any of the results in the recently completed CIMS
evaluation?

Jacques: No. As a matter of fact they welcomed the feedback and many of them have
enhanced their products as a result.

ICDN: Did you review the results with them ahead of time?

Jacques: They actually participated in the evaluation. That's not to say that they
intervened in the test, but they provided assistance and support during the
testing.

ICDN: Are most municipalities or public safety agencies already using tools like
these, or are these products new to a lot of them?

Jacques: CIMS software is new to a lot of localities. I think Fairfax County, for
example, is in the process of acquiring a new
package. However, some counties already have some of these types of programs in
place.

ICDN: I’m surprised there would be ten different products for an emerging market
like this.

Jacques: There are actually more than that number, which is not surprising when
you think of the number of units of local
government and state agencies that are out there. Again, we realize that the
requirements for Washington D.C. are going to be
dramatically different than they are in Lynchburg, Virginia, which is a much
smaller locality.

ICDN: Did your evaluation identify any unmet needs, so that you could go back to
the vendors and say, "In the future, we really
need this added functionality?"

Jacques: Yes. Interoperability was the primary need given that external data feeds
were not a particularly strong suit of any of
the vendors; this is an area for them to work on.

ICDN: What type of feedback have you received about the evaluation so far?

Jacques: The feedback we've received from the practitioners was that they thought
that this tool provided invaluable help to them
as it gives them the means of fairly evaluating these various products.
Specifically, the emergency responder community has been
so pleased with the usefulness of the CIMS Testbed Project that Glen Woodbury, the
Washington State Emergency Management
Division Director -- in his role as current President of the National Emergency
Management Association (NEMA) -- sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney General
stating that the tool needs to be developed further.
I would add that the CIMS Testbed Project has been an unqualified success in terms
of providing a blueprint for future testbed
initiatives due to several factors, particularly with respect to having the
targeted user community involved from the beginning. This
involvement included site visits to 9 EMAs, evaluation criteria developed by EMA
personnel, a Testbed co-located with the DC
EMA, and the direct participation by EMA personnel from 22 states and 10 cities
who conducted the actual product functional
evaluations.

ICDN: It is almost like a Consumers Reports evaluation, right?

Jacques: Yes, but the evaluation tool, itself, can be very helpful. These agencies
can adjust the evaluation criteria as they see
necessary and appropriate. This tool gives them the means to impartially evaluate
the various products against their actual requirements, instead of trying to read
through the material that vendors send them.

ICDN: You mentioned that several of the products have the provision to input and
incorporate traffic information. That would still
require public safety agencies to have some type of "institutional links" to the
transportation agencies that collect and own that
data, wouldn't it?

Jacques: Right. While several of the systems evaluated could manually accept
external data or be modified to do so, the need for
them to be interoperable is the key. As we learn more about such relationships
through discussions with our counterparts in the
U.S. Dept. of Transportation, the interoperability issue must be addressed. Craig
Allred, the Public Safety Coordinator for the
USDOT ITS Joint Program Office, mentioned what they were doing in New York City,
for example, where they are providing
critical emergency management links. That effort is very interesting to us in
terms of being integrated with the incident management systems.

ICDN: Are you talking about the Integrated Incident Management System, or "IIMS"
project?

Jacques: Exactly. In fact, we were just getting ready to start a new technology
evaluation project in New York. The technology
is known as ASOCC (Area Security Operations Command and Control), and it struck me
that what the IIMS project was trying to
accomplish would be an important element in terms of data feeds into the ASOCC
system. ASOCC is a system that was
developed for the Defense Department to provide situational awareness. That system
can integrate images, video, maps, and
various data sets, including weather and traffic data. Any successful command and
control system is going to rely on real-time
information, and having traffic information is a vital element.

ICDN: Be able to access video camera shots, for example?

Jacques: Exactly, which will enable the public safety agency to direct assets
using the best route or alternative routes. Since that
IIMS project is now being tested in New York City, we could tie data from that
project into our ASOCC evaluation.

ICDN: Have you contacted the IIMS folks yet?

Jacques: I have talked to Craig and we are trying to get a joint meeting with the
people in the New York Police Department that
I am working with, which includes Deputy Chief John Gilmartin, so that we can tie
the two efforts together in some way. The
meeting has been set for Thursday, July 31 at the NYPD.

ICDN: Give me a little background on the ASOCC evaluation project. [View project
proposal.] Is that project currently funded?

Jacques: Yes. We are funding the evaluation of the ASOCC system in the New York
Police Department. ASOCC is an
interactive computer-based system designed to provide real-time situational
awareness capabilities. The system can provide
graphic and image-based photographs and maps with supporting data. It offers
collaboration capabilities, a log and alert function,
the ability to display time-phased force deployment data, and a means to access
and display updated information from web-based
status boards and databases, which is where IIMS could come in.

ICDN: When did the evaluation project begin?

Jacques: The project began about 3 months ago. The ASOCC software, which was
developed by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), should be installed
around mid-August.

ICDN: So you are trying to see if you could utilize that ASOCC system for public
safety applications?

Jacques: Exactly. Given that it was designed as a command-and-control
collaboration system, key information sharing --
especially during time of a crisis -- is critical to managing the response. Under
the current national threat environment, further
requirements have been identified, specifically NYPD's need to have solid
connectivity and information sharing capability with
other outside agencies at the state, regional and federal level.

ICDN: Is ASOCC in widespread use by the Defense Department today?

Jacques: It is being used by the Air Force out in the Pacific Command, as well as
several other elements of the Defense
Department. I also understand that the Louisiana State Police are using it, as
well, and it's going to be installed in Arlington, VA
and Washington, DC later this year. So our assessment of its viability for public
safety agencies will benefit from these other
installations in addition to our evaluation in New York.

ICDN: It's interesting that ASOCC will be installed in the same location --
Arlington, VA -- that's the site of the next round of
CIMS software evaluation. Is there a connection between the CIMS packages and
ASOCC?

Jacques: No formal connection. However, information from CIMS tools can be fed
into ASOCC. Critical incident management
tools capture information about incidents, and that information can be fed into
ASOCC, which can then apply decision-support and
other tools to that information. We chose Arlington because it's a central
location and access from the area airport and the Metro
system makes it easily accessible to people coming in from other areas of the
country.

ICDN: The functionality of the ASOCC system is much broader than that of any of
the CIMS packages, wouldn’t you say?

Jacques: Yes. The ASOCC package is a much more comprehensive system. It provides
not only threat warnings based on risk
and vulnerability analyses, but decision support tools, as well. It is designed to
provide real-time situational awareness capabilities
and a common operation picture.

ICDN: Has the New York City Police Department committed to using ASOCC?

Jacques: No. This project is strictly an evaluation. They're going to be
installing it in multiple precincts and Boroughs.

ICDN: Would public safety agencies have access to ASOCC at no or low cost? Is that
part of its potential advantage to them?

Jacques: Yes. These government-developed programs are expected to be free and
available to state and local governments.
However, there are costs associated with installation and training.

ICDN: Would these state and local governments also have access to source code so
that they could modify or enhance the software for their own needs?

Jacques: That is my understanding. Of course, as I just mentioned they would
likely have to contract with somebody do modifications for them, so that cost
would be involved in addition to having to pay for training services.

ICDN: What's the current timeframe for the ASOCC evaluation?

Jacques: We would like to install the software in mid to late August, and then we
will conduct the system evaluation over approximately a three-month period --
September, October, November and possibly December.

ICDN: Who will be conducting that evaluation?

Jacques: I am establishing an evaluation team consisting of state and local
practitioners as well as individuals who are familiar
with ASOCC, such as individuals from the Pacific Command.

ICDN: When do you expect to release a report on this evaluation?

Jacques: I would guess by mid-spring 2004.

ICDN: Assuming the evaluation is positive, where would ASOCC go from there? Would
you see it possibly being deployed
nationwide?

Jacques: That is certainly the goal of DISA.

ICDN: So they are very supportive of the idea of using the ASOCC platform for
non-defense purposes?

Jacques: Absolutely.

ICDN: Obviously there is a potential tie-in with IIMS. Do you see any other
tie-ins with the transportation departments in either
of these projects?

Jacques: The Federal Highway Administration has a lot of data feeds that can be of
incredible value for these systems, such as
the data feed from TRANSCOM in the New York/New Jersey/Connecticut metropolitan
region. Hopefully, we will expand our
relationship with the FHWA and actually make them more a part of these various
projects.

ICDN: Of course, a lot of the real-time transportation data likely resides with
state DOTs.

Jacques: Sure. I'm getting ready to start the development of a statewide
communication plan in Virginia. The Virginia State Police are heading up that
effort for the state. Again, there's an opportunity to develop that plan in a way
that brings in the highway and public safety elements. The Virginia Department of
Transportation would obviously be a player.

ICDN: It sounds like you are trying to encourage the use of these advanced
decision/support/communication systems which,
obviously, can greatly benefit from real-time transportation system information
feeds.

Jacques: Absolutely. That information is going to be so important to responders.
We also have a project going with the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey to evaluate a risk vulnerability/assessment
tool, which will be looking at all of their assets,
including tunnels, bridges, ports and airports. Again, information from the state
highway departments in New Jersey and New
York will be important for that evaluation.

http://www.nawgits.com/icdn/jacques_incmgt.html

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