“Ground Search and Rescue Incident Command System (GSAR ICS) Project”
donaldlloyd
in Climate Change, Crisis and Emergency Management, Emergency Management, Government, Indigenous, Industry News, NGO, Search and Rescue
The GSAR ICS Project addresses a big gap within the Canadian ground search and rescue landscape.
GSAR in Canada is administered by federal, provincial/territorial, and municipal organizations with the support of 300 volunteer SAR teams across the country. Currently, GSAR operations are not supported by a standardized GSAR technology platform. Some GSAR organizations have tech of varying capabilities; some have none.
The varying GSAR applications that are in use currently have the following limitations:
– technology doesn’t integrate with the common productivity applications used by most organizations within the GSAR community;
– technology is not interoperable;
– tech doesn’t scale for large scale multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional incidents;
– little to no automation of data collection or entry;
– insufficient data being generated for knowledge management to inform policy and budgeting; and
– some existing GSAR tech is difficult or awkward to use and unreliable.
The good news is that most Canadian GSAR organizations have adopted the standard ICS concept of operations as well as a standard approach to GSAR workflow. The GSAR ICS project team is addressing the technology gap within the Canadian GSAR community by developing an integrated solution that leverages the ICS concept of operations and GSAR workflows with the following advanced capabilities, among others:
– Mobile, configurable, scalable, and interoperable;
– Online/offline capability with real-time situational awareness and communications at the tactical edge;
– Automated data collection and storage including evidence, images, videos and chat;
– Flexible incident management, reporting and knowledge management capabilities; and
– Integration with existing technology investments and a plug-in architecture that enables onboarding of new capabilities.
The above is being delivered by an experienced industry team with specialized expertise supported by a deeply experienced GSAR national advisory group, which is representative of the pan-Canadian GSAR community. The GSAR ICS Project is aimed at implementing a national technology platform with voluntary participation of SAR organizations funded by Public Safety Canada. We are making good progress with great support from the GSAR community, and we’re all working with common cause towards enabling better GSAR outcomes and policy making decisions. Stay safe!
