Each jurisdiction uses their own fully redundant RSAN system to communicate with first responders and key officials during routine incidents, while the Roam Secure Emergency Information Exchange (RSIX) ties all the jurisdictions together into a seamless, real-time, secure, interoperable, information sharing, and emergency communication network. Authorized senders can issue alerts, or the system can automatically pull, filter and deliver information from other RSAN systems around the region, country and third party systems including weather, traffic, crime, Amber alerts and more. The system supports feed of all types, including CAP-based feeds among the five jurisdictions and with other Roam Secure systems in New Jersey, multiple departments within the City of Philadelphia and a major oil refinery in the region. The system will also be a part of the regional fusion center being developed by the Counter Terrorism Task Force.
"The greater Philadelphia region is a strategic area between Washington, D.C. and New York," said Frank Punzo, Deputy Commissioner of Communications for the City of Philadelphia. "We have nuclear facilities, major refineries, waterways, ports, roadways and other critical infrastructure. It is absolutely essential that organizations at the federal/state/county and municipal levels are coordinated with regard to first response. With RSAN as our messaging platform, and the interoperability provided by RSIX we have the capability to facilitate a large scale response on a region-wide basis."
All counties in the region have a secure, centralized, locally controlled, web-accessible database of thousands of public health officials, city employees, volunteers and first responders easily organized, managed and alerted in seconds. Alerts are sent for routine, urgent and emergency communications for the departments as well as to other partner agencies in and around the region. RSAN supports alerting to: any text capable device (cell phone via SMS, pager, BlackBerry); email; instant messaging; a voice call to landline, wireless or satellite phone; fax; XM Satellite radio; indoor and outdoor speakers; message boards and other communication media. The system has already been used frequently in the region during routine and major incidents and events, such as the NFC championships, Live 8 concert, severe weather and major events affecting the area.
Beyond the greater Philadelphia region, the SECTTF system is integrated into the Roam Secure Information Emergency Exchange, which enables real-time, secure information sharing with other Roam Secure customers in major metro areas across the country, such as Washington, DC; Baltimore; San Francisco; New Orleans and more than 135 RSAN systems at cities, counties, federal agencies, states, colleges, airports, hospitals and other businesses in ten states across the country.
"Text is the reliable source for emergency communication. We learned this during 9/11, again during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and most recently in Minnesota where voice channels were flooded while text worked." said David Drescher, Chief Executive Officer of Roam Secure. "RSAN provides the best technology for reliable, high speed alerting to leading cities, counties and states around the country, such as Arlington County and New Orleans who experienced major disasters first hand. RSIX provides the ability to connect all 135+ RSAN systems and growing for regional, statewide and national interoperability and real-time information sharing. Emergency officials in the Philadelphia region have taken the next step forward in the evolution of cross-domain, multi-jurisdictional information sharing and they are better prepared, informed and able to respond to all hazards incidents."
