With an average of 35 interventions every day the first info coming in is crucial for firefighters. How can you brief your brave women and men immediately with all the necessary information, so they can prepare and scramble in the safest way possible?
The customer: a major Flemish Fire Department
Instantly knowing the location, the type of incident and the urgency level makes all the difference for a firefighter when he or she is called upon. Equally relevant are which stations, units and what type of equipment exactly are involved.
Our customer, a major Flemish Fire Department counting 700 firefighters across 7 stations, had been using beepers to alert personnel. But a tiny box like that has very limited communication options and poor visual impact if none.
A firefighter may be called upon for various emergencies, ranging from firefighting to cleaning up hazardous material. So the more details and clarity in those first few seconds, the better.
A combination of adaptive pictograms and text would be perfect.
Digital signage challenges: speed, clarity, impact
The department knew they needed smart screens, but not just that: the screens had to be fed by a system that was both incredibly reliable and smart enough to instantly digest the data from the response center, dispatch engine and city IT infrastructure.
Moreover, the information coming through had to be localized: only those stations involved needed to be alerted. And they had to be able to see in an instant what was going on.
How Centoview helped
Even when there are no emergencies, digital signage can offer relevant information, so our customer agreed they should use the screens in that way too. That is why we set up a custom information system that combined both functions.
We made sure it connected all of the 60 smart screens across the department’s 7 fire stations: it can share info on all units in a one-to-all fashion.
But we added local triggers to every single screen: this allows the digital signage flow to be immediately interrupted with emergency info for all stations involved.
The Centoview system cleverly
- works with the GIS data and data streams delivered
by the response center, dispatch engine and city IT infrastructure - subscribes to the dynamic data system
through a Centoview websocket server - pushes emergency information in real-time
to the local screens of the stations involved
Because the image displayed is made of dynamic data, it may even differ from screen to screen. Impact and relevance guaranteed.
Why the customer chose Centoview
Smart custom development. Speed and reliability. Integration of the data systems available. Localization on screen level. Communication impact through dynamic, highly relevant information.
Add a budget-friendly solution by using the integrated Centodisplay instead of a separate screen and player; and a live demo proving the decision makers we were able to push information to a screen within one second: that’s how we won over a major customer.
If a fire department relies on you for its digital signage emergency platform, you know you are solid as a rock. At Centoview we could not be more proud of this project: we have made a huge difference for firefighters and everyone who needs them.
