Real-Time Warnings to Citizens

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1 Technology, J. Kost, K. Moyer Research Note 13 February 2003 Real-Time Warnings to Citizens Government can act in "real time" by using a telephone alert system, which can contact many people very rapidly to warn them of an emergency situation. Core Topic Government: Government Infrastructure & Applications Key Issue What applications will affect the operations of government? Emergency Telephone Alert System (ETAS) In an emergency, the ability to make a large volume of outbound calls to citizens is a potentially important concept in public safety. Government departments that are responsible for police, fire, health and emergency management (especially at the municipal level), as well as some private companies, are using technology to notify and alert constituents and employees of hazards and events, and to solicit their assistance during emergency situations. Most communities in the United States already have Enhanced 911 (E911) capability. E911 is a one-to-one mode in which the caller contacts the government to report an emergency. Where possible, an E911 system identifies the caller and their location. An ETAS is a "one-to-many" solution with the ability to alert and notify people of a specific event in a selected geographical area. The foundation of ETAS alert and notification is the ability to subdivide outbound calls by geographic area or other demographic characteristic. A selected geographic area can be a city block, zip code or any other regularly or irregularly shaped geographical zone. When needed, a message is recorded and sent to all telephone numbers in the selected area in an outbound calling session. (Blocked phone numbers may not receive ETAS calls.) In most situations, a voice mail can be left if a person is not available when the call is sent out. Thousands of phone numbers can be dialed within minutes. Text messages can be sent to addresses, cellular phones, digital pagers and the hearing-impaired. Cell phones can be registered to be included in the database. Any organization that needs to quickly reach large groups of people (and potentially receive a response back from those Gartner Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice.

2 contacted) regarding public-safety issues should consider ETAS. These organizations can include: Note 1 Tampa, Florida, ETAS Message The Tampa Florida, Police Department provides the following information about ETAS on its Web site. Most residents of the city of Tampa know they can call 911 to get police, fire or medical assistance. What they may not know is the police can use the Reverse 911 Community Notification System to notify residents and businesses about a potential emergency circumstance. The Reverse 911 Community Notification System is a valuable tool for the department to alert the community of "time critical" messages. The Reverse 911 Community Notification System allows the police department to rapidly notify specific geographical areas by telephone. What may have taken hours upon hours consuming a large portion of staffing to accomplish can be done in a fraction of that time with little impact on officer deployment. The capability to disseminate critical information in a very rapid manner with minimal staff means safety to residents and businesses alike. Officers who would be pulled away from assignments to conduct door-to-door notification may be left at strategic posts or to respond as needs arise during a crisis. Citizens are alerted in a more-timely fashion about critical events allowing them additional and sometimes crucial time to take action, such as evacuating in the case of imminent natural disasters. Public-safety agencies (see Note 1) Public-health agencies Environmental-protection agencies Companies handling hazardous materials Transportation agencies or enterprises Educational institutions Utilities An ETAS may be used in many different ways: Example 1: Hazardous Chemical Spill If a hazardous chemical spill or nuclear reaction incident occurs, an ETAS may be used to help evacuate people in a selected area. Example 2: Lost Child or Criminal Manhunt An ETAS can help find a lost or missing child, or locate people who may have witnessed a crime. Police identify where the child was last seen and then send a message to a specified geographical area usually a square-mile area or larger depending on the age of the child. Anyone that has seen the child is able to indicate the sighting by pressing a number on their telephone; the number is provided in the outbound calling session. Example 3: Emergency Response Mobilization An ETAS may be used to notify emergency response teams members when they are needed. Team members are able indicate that they have received the call and are able to respond immediately. By using an ETAS, emergency response agencies are able to know who has received the notification and how quickly they will be able to respond. Example 4: Utility Disruption Notification Public and commercial utilities could use an ETAS to notify a neighborhood that water is about to be shut off to repair a broken water main, or that power is out due to a lightning strike and repairs are under way. It would provide more-proactive information to consumers and minimize the number of inbound 13 February

3 contacts from irate customers wondering why their service has been disrupted. Example 5: Government-to-Citizen, Government-to-Business The above examples are of agencies contacting large numbers of citizens based on geographic location. Other nonconsumer situations might include the U.S. Centers for Disease Control contacting hospitals or other health organizations. It might include a state Medicaid agency contacting various health providers, or a police agency contacting gun dealers. The possibilities are not limited by the technology. An ETAS could also be used in the case of fires, prison escapees, natural disasters, company events, citizen surveys or to notify citizens of a change of day in garbage pickup. According to the National Science and Technology Council, effective warnings should have the following characteristics: Be brief (typically less than two minutes and preferably less than one minute) Present discrete ideas in a bulleted fashion Use nontechnical language Use appropriate text/graphics geared for the affected hazard community and general population Provide an official basis for the hazardous event message Provide most-important information first, including any standardized headlines Describe the areas affected and time Provide level of uncertainty or probability of occurrence Provide a brief call-to-action statement for appropriate public response Describe where more-detailed follow-up information can be found (Source: "Effective Disaster Warnings" Report by the Working Group on Natural Disaster Information Systems Subcommittee on Natural Disaster Reduction, National Science and Technology Council, November 2000) Within the above guidelines, ETAS calls can easily be constructed to notify citizens of issues of interest. Technology and Suppliers 13 February

4 ETAS solutions are generally provided through a premise-based model or a hosted model. The premise-based model is a software application at the desktop level. It relies on a database that consists of a comprehensive list of phone numbers for residents or businesses in a community. The premise-based model database is maintained by the community, public-safety agency or enterprise, and usually links to a geographic information system (GIS). The ability to select a subsegment of the database for notification based on a GIS or some other characteristics of the target population is a key aspect of the solution. When an alert is needed, the appropriate officials use a GIS to identify the geographic area that will be affected. The GIS system overlays the phone database to identify the specific phone numbers to be called. A message is recorded (or a prerecorded message is selected) and outbound phone calls are initiated. The database may be supplied by the local telephone company; federal regulations require this information must be supplied to government at a reasonable price. Alternatively, communities can create their own databases based on information the community has about constituents or by having constituents register to receive alerts. The hosted model, or a fee-for-service model, is accessed through the Internet or a phone call. The technology vendor, not the customer, manages the application and hardware. Nothing needs to be acquired, installed or maintained internally by the customer. Fees are generally charged on a monthly basis, and are based on the number of records in a database and the number of outbound calls initiated. The hosted-model technology vendor also manages the database, building and updating the database periodically. Customers can access the system through the Internet, selecting the geographical area to be notified. Alternatively, customers can call the technology vendor and describe the geographical area that they want to notify; the technology vendor manages the graphical selection. A message is recorded (or a prerecorded message is selected), and outbound phone calls are initiated. Because so much technology is available to meet ETAS needs, an organization called Communications for Coordinated Assistance and Response to Emergencies (ComCARE) has been formed. ComCARE is a nonprofit alliance that plays an advocacy role in emergency notification. ComCARE attempts to raise awareness of this issue, while identifying open standards and commercially available technology that enable emergency alerts beyond the telephone, without the expense and difficulty of 13 February

5 creating a new system unique to government. While enabling the same sort of GIS interfaces as telephony-based solutions, ComCARE has identified technology that enables linkages between graphical user interface maps at the message-switch level, thus enabling multichannel outbound contacts. Within the telephony environment, Gartner has identified the following vendors as suppliers of ETAS products and services for government. Sigma Communications: Sigma's Reverse 911 solutions operate on a stand-alone processor or on a network server for publicsafety agencies and municipalities. Reverse 911 maintains a relationship with GIS supplier ESRI. Sigma has sold its product to communities as small as 1,000 people and as large as several hundred thousand. The Sigma product is sold to users who train the appropriate individuals to maintain and use the database. Pricing is based on the number of seats, size of the database and number and type of lines. Intrado (formerly SCC Communications): Intrado provides an ETAS product and service through a hosted model for publicsafety agencies. Intrado manages the ETAS database based on E911 extracts from the telephone company, which includes a list of unpublished numbers that is updated regularly. The company has GIS relationships with both ESRI and GDT, and Qwest Communications acts as a reseller. Intrado indicates that it manages a total of 6 million records for its public-safety customers, and plans to expand into the private sector. Pricing is based on the size of the database and number of calls made per month. Intel/Dialogic: Dialogic, acquired by Intel in 1999, provides ETAS solutions through its call-software-processing suite. The solution is Intel-server-based and premise-based, and includes the hardware and software required to make outbound notification calls. GIS and other related applications may be integrated to the Intel/Dialogic solution through application programming interfaces. Policy Implications of ETAS At this time, no federal laws or regulations have mandated the deployment or use of ETASs. However, it is clear that several federal agencies are promoting this concept by providing various types of grants to communities that deploy them. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has recognized ETAS as an appropriate disaster notification technology. 13 February

6 Some communities are purchasing ETAS solutions through funding from FEMA, the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The cost of implementing an ETAS will vary by community size and the sophistication of the implementation. Costs have ranged from $25,000 to more than $500,000. Like many systems built primarily for rare events, a community's interest in investing in this type of technology will likely depend on the resources available and the perceived probability of a major emergency. Communities especially susceptible to natural disasters seem most likely to adopt an ETAS. However, communities bordering on facilities offering man-made threats, such as nuclear power plants, chemical plants and major transportation hubs, will also find this investment of interest. ETAS is, by definition, phone-based. In most communities, the telephone is the fastest way to reach a large number of people. Many communities are relying increasingly on the Web for notifications (such as school closures during bad weather). However, this approach may be unreliable if there is poor Web penetration in a community, no electricity to operate computers, or an event occurs at a time when few people are logged in. Similarly, relying on radio, cable or network broadcast alone assumes there is electric power and that people are tuned to a device. ETAS is important because: The phone is a more ubiquitous form of technology than the Web. It is interactive and can determine whether the intended recipient received the message. It is not dependent on the availability of electricity. Related Research "CapWIN Shows Governments Can Cooperate on IT Projects" Acronym Key ComCARE Communications for Coordinated Assistance and Response to Emergencies E911 Enhanced 911 ETAS Emergency Telephone Alert System FEMA Federal Emergency Management Agency GIS Geographic information system However, the open systems over multiple channel approach that ComCARE is advocating appears to provide a wider variety of highly flexible solutions that are adaptable to the needs of government for use beyond outbound emergency calling campaigns. Bottom Line: Citizens assume that government has the ability and will notify them in the event of an emergency. This creates an obligation for real-time action by government. Technology that is available today can help meet short-term expectations for homeland security relying on a ubiquitous channel the telephone. Technology also exists to enable government to implement real-time multichannel outbound alerts beyond the phone. 13 February