A blog post by CS Group France.
Preserving the open nature of public spaces, while ensuring their safety and security is a challenging task. It requires, on one side, a combination of solutions like advanced technologies and, on the other side, a strong collaboration between public and private security operators. The APPRAISE project delivered a state-of-the-art platform enhancing the collaboration among public and private security operators. This platform is able to collect information from multiple data sources and display it in a unified operations management system.
What is an Operations Management System?
The APPRAISE Intelligent hypervision and operation management tool, named DITHO (Digital Twin based Hypervision and Operations Management system) is provided by CS GROUP. It enables public and private security operators to monitor the public space requiring protection, as well as benefit from the operations management capabilities to manage the security and rescue operations. The Operations Management System provided a comprehensive situational awareness, based on data coming from cyber, online and physical tools, as well as events reported by the crowd. The portability of this tool is a real added value as it can be deployed in static or mobile Command and Control centres, as well as deployed on tablets or mobile phones, facilitating direct information exchange with the field agents. It is also interoperable with other visualisation means such as Augmented Reality glasses.
Who can use the Operations Management System?
The APPRAISE project was a unique opportunity to collect requirements and build a tool matching the specific needs formulated by the ten project end-users, as well as a variety of stakeholders involved in the events and workshops organised within the project. The APPRAISE Operations management system was tested in four heterogenous pilots, using a digital twin of the environment to be protected complemented with information captured by a smartly chosen set of online and physical sensors corresponding to the operational needs of the local end-users.
The demonstrations gave the occasion to train people from private security operators from four European countries and public security agents from five countries, including three SWAT Teams. Meeting end-users during the demonstrations was key to further enhance the Operations Management System. Feedback was collected allowing to improve the tool to better fit the security operators needs when it comes to accessing information, sharing it with other public or private operators (including across the border) and ensuring the best possible operational awareness by using aggregated inputs from cyber, online and physical sensors.
Moreover, the APPRAISE Operation Management System has been designed to foster the collaboration between LEAs and private security operators and improve responsiveness and effectiveness of the operations. For this purpose, it can be deployed on multiple devices, including tablets and mobile phones thus facilitating the real-time exchange of information between the different operators in the command-and-control centre and deployed on the scene.
Tangible benefits within APPRAISE
Throughout the project multiple end-users have contributed to shape the final version of the APPRAISE Operations Management Tool. This collaborative work has led to an extensive, highly modular and adaptable platform that is compatible with various sites and pre-existing installations. Furthermore, it enables clearly defined user-rights and information sharing rules, making it fit for collaboration among private and public security operators, but also teams with different expertise.