Sponsored by Live Earth Software
By Police1 BrandFocus Staff
Recently a microburst storm hit Elgin, Illinois, carving out a path of destruction five miles wide and dozens of miles long. The storm struck suddenly, with little warning to residents, packing 90 mph winds that took down trees and knocked out power.
With downed trees blocking the streets and live power lines strewn about, the city had to mobilize its resources quickly, directing police and fire services to the hardest-hit areas.
Incidents like this unfold quickly, and public safety agencies need accurate and timely information in order to respond swiftly and appropriately. For most agencies, data from multiple separate systems must be manually collected to create a comprehensive picture, delaying critical response decisions.
Visualization software can help police and other public safety agencies manage their response more quickly and effectively by aggregating crucial information into a single map for improved situational awareness.
See Everything on One Screen
Based on technology developed for the U.S. military, Live Earth Software delivers instant and accurate information using a high-performance map that allows police and other public safety agencies to examine a large set of different data feeds in real time and on a single screen.
Instead of toggling between screens and waiting for disparate data to be manually correlated in static reports, incident commanders can respond faster using Live Earth, which automatically aggregates data from multiple systems onto a single interactive map, says Live Earth CEO Jeff Carpenter.
Consider the aforementioned storm – although it seemingly came out of nowhere, the city’s emergency services would have been prepared because Live Earth includes a real-time weather data feed. Emergency services could watch the storm’s path and its increasing severity, see lightning strikes approach key facilities and better recognize in advance the areas that would be hardest hit.
After the storm passed, Live Earth could be used to assess the damage using data feeds from several different services and organizations. Emergency managers could tell which neighborhoods were without power, which areas suffered the worst traffic congestion and, by tapping into the city’s own video feeds, display damaged areas in real time.
Customizable to Meet any Organizational Need
Live Earth can visualize and animate millions of data points simultaneously from dozens of IT systems, real-time data feeds and sensors, says Carpenter.
“Our users can show and hide different data sources based on their specific operations or function,” he said. “Live Earth gives organizations a lot of flexibility to bring the most relevant data to the right people at the right time.”
A variety of live data layers are included with the software, such as traffic, weather, lightning, bus locations, water sensors and more. Live Earth’s marketplace offers a variety of additional map layers and third-party integrations that can be added to the map with just a few clicks.
Most importantly, each agency can incorporate its own private data, IT systems, data feeds and sensor systems into Live Earth, such as CCTV, shot detection, body-worn cameras and traffic cameras, creating more value out of existing infrastructure.
Pause, Rewind and Replay any Incident
Perhaps Live Earth’s most valuable function is the ability to pause, rewind and replay the data feed for incident reconstruction. You can roll back the timeline to rewind and review the scenario as it played out minutes or hours ago. This allows for a seamless transition between reviewing historical events and live monitoring.
Using Live Earth is intuitive – the system feels very familiar because the map can be navigated with a touch screen, using techniques and gestures similar to a smartphone. The easy-to-use timeline controls are very similar to a DVR.
As you manipulate the timeline, all data feeds are animated to show asset locations, sensor data and traffic flow in sync, as it occurred at that time, instantly reconstructing the events to provide historical context. This makes Live Earth a powerful analytic and forensic tool in addition to providing real-time situational awareness. Further, every incident becomes an opportunity to review and refine emergency and incident response procedures.
Make the Most of Your Technology Infrastructure
Many police agencies struggle with separate data streams that can’t be easily integrated. Live Earth Software solves this problem. Being able to view all the available information in a single, customizable geospatial display gives incident commanders information they trust and understand, which translates to quicker, better-informed decisions that can save money, resources and most importantly, lives.
Live Earth helps police and other public safety agencies leverage the investments they’ve already made in other technologies by consolidating critical data onto a single situational awareness display so you can understand quickly and act fast.