Analysis, Representation and Visualization of Emergencies Attended by Integrated Security Services

Abstract

Background. Given the undeniable need to have an e cient emergency response infrastructure, which can articulate the involved institutions and using state-of-the-art technology, in 2012 Ecuador set up the Integrated Security Service ECU 911. The implemented management model articulates the response institutions throughout the national territory. Fire Brigades interact with the Ministry of Risk Management, Military, Police, Health, Municipal Services, and Transit, thus sharing e orts, optimizing resources and providing an integrated service to the population of 16.5 million inhabitants in our country. The present research is divided into three stages. The rst one describes in detail what is the Integrated Security Service ECU 911, its background, management model, intervening institutions, its current technological platform, in addition to the steps and recommendations to follow to migrate to a next-generation NG-911 service, all of this aligned with technological advances, user needs, and implemented models both in Europe and in North America. The second one deals with the statistical, spatial and temporal representation of 911 emergencies in Ecuador, where an analysis of the institutions, the type of events that are attended, and an optimal way of representing the events are presented, in order to provide feedback to the service managers of the Integrated Security Service ECU 911, to optimize its planning processes, and to continuously improve the response to events attended by the seven articulated institutions. The third one introduces a new version of the multiple correspondence analysis, speci cally adapted to be applied to emergencies attended by a Public Service Answering Point (PSAP). Objectives. This work is oriented to analyze the general aspects of the Integrated Security Service named ECU-911 that operates in Ecuador since 2012, and the proposed objectives in this setting are the following. First, to develop the state-of-the-art of the ECU-911 service, its origins, composition, elements, coordinated institutions, used technologies, alert mechanisms, communications with the response institutions, data storage, information sharing, and the elements needed to migrate from the actual enhanced 911 service to a next-generation 911 services, according to international standards and technology evolution. Second, to propose a procedure to map the emergencies attended in the ECU 911, considering their statistical, spatial, and temporal characteristics, and oriented to nd patterns, trends, and the most representative parameters. All of this is targeted to characterize the emergencies, institutions, and to obtain valuable information to feedback the service management level aiming to improve the service response. Third, to nd informative relationships among the di erent categories of registered and attended emergencies by applying multiple correspondence analysis to the information of the events attended by a PSAP. Methodology. The study has been done in the city of Quito, Ecuador, and for its realization, information has been collected about the emergencies attended in the provinces of Pichincha, Napo, and Orellana. A general description has been done to detail the state-of-the-art of the ECU 911 service of Ecuador, how it operates, what are the main components, and a proposal for di erent manners to process, visualize, classify, and use the information stored in the Public Safety Answering Point. The information available in the database corresponded to more than one million of emergencies attended in 2014 by the institutions coordinated by the service. The use of non-parametric methods as bootstrap resampling techniques, Parzen windowing, or multiple correspondence analysis, has been applied to identify the characteristic patterns of the analyzed set of data. Results. The rst descriptive state-of-the-art of the Integrated Security Service named ECU 911 is provided herein, together with it speci es the characteristics of the service, institutions coordinated, the applied management model, the numbers of PSAP distributed countrywide, the used technology and the challenges to become a next-generation 911 service. A second result is the applications of statistical geographical and temporal analysis to visualize the characteristics of the emergencies attended by each institution, obtaining visual data regarding its behaviour and characteristics. Finally, a meaningful manner to visualize the possible relationships among emergencies and institutions is provided, by using the multiple correspondence analysis applying to the emergency response service, resulting in an interesting manner to represent the events. Conclusions. The present dissertation has provided a general description of the Integrated Security Service ECU 911 implemented in Ecuador since 2012. The actual state of the Enhanced 911 platform has been analyzed, and the challenges to migrate to a next-generation 911 service are provided, all in concordance with the lines provided by international organizations like the European Emergency Number Association and the American Emergency Number Associations. The results of the statistical geographical and spatio-temporal analysis of the emergencies attended by the ECU 911 service during 2014 have been provided, detailing the characteristics and behaviour of each institution. Finally, the results of applying a simple yet meaningful multiple correspondence analysis have been delivered, allowing to identify the relationship of the emergencies attended and the institutions of rst response of the Integrated Security Service.