With the Falck Fire Alert an intelligent, cost-efficient and qualitative way of alerting part-time firefighters is introduced, ensuring that the right resources needed are alerted and not the large groups that were previously called out.
The innovative Falck Fire Alert notifies the parttime firefighters via the mobile data network, rather than the radio network that has been in use since the mid-70s, thereby offering a quicker, more flexible and up-to-date solution. Furthermore, the solution has been built on a platform that makes it easy to adjust and develop in order to ensure a state-of-the-art dispatch system.
The smart-pager only weighs 172 grams and is both drop- and waterproof. It has a simple user interface and includes Geofencing which can determine whether a firefighter is within the required 5 minutes distance before they are called in.
The smart pager is mainly developed by and for firefighters and introduces a change of culture in which indicating your availability as a part-timer will mean that you are participating in the response when alerted, this increases engagement and also empowers the firefighters to set their own availability as the alerting algorithm considerably increases the chances that once alerted a firefighter will indeed be part of an emergency response.
“This new solution has been developed over the last 2 years in a close collaboration between Fire Service Rota, TDC, Samsung and not to mention our own firefighters. It is a one-of-a-kind system which ensures that we in Falck set the bar for future firefighting,” says Managing Director Falck Fire Denmark Max Andersen.
For Falck’s customers, the new devise means increased quality assurance as it guarantees firefighters’ presence in an emergency response situation, it also means faster re-alerting after the initial primary alert, in fact up to 30 seconds faster than with the current radio network. It also delivers clear insight into coverage availability, meaning it will show how active part-time firefighter coverage is during the days, evenings, weekends, holidays etc. Furthermore, an additional benefit for the customer is the faster alerting of special or scarce resources and vehicles as the new device gives continuous insight into resource availability, which means less re-alerting will be needed to get the right crew at the right time.
“We are very proud to launch Falck Fire Alert in our Danish fire business. We have been involved in fighting fires and saving peoples lives in Denmark for over a hundred years, and we want to continue to do so for another hundred, therefore we are investing in this solution for the future, enabling us to better service our customers, more easily connect and collaborate with our employees as well as deliver a better business for Falck,” says VP Fire Services Dries Van Dongen.
Falck is a first-mover in the market to adopt this intelligent solution and the smart-pager will be rolled out to all 82 fire stations under the Falck control center within 2021, allowing more than 1400 firefighters to benefit from the new call-unit.
