Attributes

Timeliness and speed of deliveryedit

Emergency systems require timely and quick dissemination in order to mitigate damage or loss of life. During the Virginia Tech massacre, about two hours had passed before the first communication (an email) was sent to staff and students. By that time, the gunman had already entered and secured a building in which he was shortly to begin his attack. It wasn't until about 20 minutes after the shootings began that a loudspeaker announcement was made for people to take cover.

Ease of useedit

During a crisis, the people who use an ECS need to quickly and easily launch their notifications and they need to be able to do so in a way that securely provides them with confidence and an intuitive, familiar and easy-to-use interface that can be accessed from any location. An emergency communication system that's designed for non-technical users will ensure successful administration and usage; and during some life-threatening emergency situations, campus administrators must be able to react quickly and trigger the alert system swiftly. Yet emergency alert is probably among the least used and least familiar processes. Ease-of-use therefore is critical to the effectiveness of an emergency communication system.

However, in order to support a robust and capable emergency communication ability, this ease of use should not preclude the use of a complex, technologically advanced system. A sufficiently advanced system is required to coordinate multiple components to act in concert, to initiate and propagate emergency communications in any manner of ways. A distinguishing factor is when such a system includes these advanced capabilities, while still being easy for the user to operate. This is important not only for effective emergency communication, but also for an organization to realize the most return on investment, as well as the user being familiar enough with its operation as to effectively operate it under stressful emergency situations, such as in an earthquake or tsunami.

Providing instructionsedit

A clearly needed attribute of any modern emergency communication system is the ability to not only provide notification of an emergency, but to also provide clear and actionable instructions for how to respond to an emergency. In a study by the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for Wireless Technologies, it was revealed that regardless of the initial form of notification, a secondary form was necessary before action would be taken. This supports the important observation that providing clear and concise instructions may reduce dependency on such secondary verification; and thus, providing instructions may save lives in an urgent emergency situation.

Specific audiences or recipientsedit

Emergencies often require delivery of different versions of the same communication at the same time. For example, in an armed hostage-taking incident, occupants of a building may need to receive instructions to lock and barricade the door until further notice, while first responders to the incident need to be aware of the lockdown instructions and be provided more specific details of the hostage-taking event to inform their actions.

Using the hostage-taking example, some of the more modern emergency communication systems state the ability to deliver a single message that provides full details to first responders, while filtering that same message to provide more limited instructions to different groups. For example, a specific message could be sent to people in a certain area, in a specific building, or even in a specific department. By using a single message that segregates information between types of users, fewer messages have to be created and sent, which can also save time.

Multiple communication paths/redundancyedit

There should be multiple means of delivering emergency information so that if one fails, others may get through. Also, according to the Partnership for Public Warning, research shows clearly that more than one channel of communication will be consulted by people at risk in order to confirm the need for action. The public expects to be contacted in a variety of ways. As evidenced by various historical and recent events, besides phone calls and emails, citizens also expect to be able to use and be reached via text messaging, and fax. In one exemplary incident, the 2012 Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting, barricaded victims relied on sending text messages for help, in addition to traditional phone calls. In addition, the public may look to social media as another vehicle to receive messages and check in on updates.

Additionally, the Partnership for Public Warning states, “A single warning is frequently insufficient to move people to action, especially if it cannot be confirmed by direct observation. For most people the first warning received captures their attention and triggers a search for corroboration, but cannot be relied on to elicit the desired behavior. Scientific research supports the common-sense observation that people are disinclined to risk being fooled by a single alarm that might prove false or accidental. Effective warning requires the coordinated use of multiple channels of communication.”

Interoperabilityedit

To support these attributes, a "unified" emergency communication system should be able to connect to and communicate with other related systems, hence the term. According to the Partnership for Public Warning, a fundamental problem is the lack of technical and procedural interoperability among warning originators, system providers, delivery systems, and warning recipients. Originators of warnings must undertake expensive, redundant tasks using multiple, dissimilar tools and techniques to take full advantage of today's warning systems.

Also, there are multiple ways that an emergency communication system might obtain an original warning. One example of this might be the case of a building's fire control system dispatching a notice that a smoke detector has activated. A properly designed emergency communication system should be able to receive that notice and process it into a message that the building's occupants can understand and take action on in order to save life and property. Another example might be of the National Weather Service sending an EAS severe weather warning (e.g. via RSS feed or similar). Modern emergency communication systems include the capability to subscribe to such source feeds, so that those responsible for disseminating the message have the most up-to-date information.

The ability to interoperate should also consider the need to be both forward and backward compatible with older and yet-to-be-conceived technologies. Introduction of a system that cannot interoperate with previously deployed equipment creates potentially serious barriers to effective operation.

Affordabilityedit

Because of budgetary constraints, for many organizations, the affordability of an emergency communication system can be just as important as the system's capabilities and effectiveness. The purchase and installation of enough emergency communication devices to provide multiple methods of communication to many locations within an organization in order to deliver location-specific instructions and for redundancy can be very expensive. Many organizations, therefore, are looking for more economical emergency communication solutions. Overall, the more affordable it is to procure, install, and maintain an emergency communication system, the more prolific such systems may become, and the more prolific these systems are, the more likely it is that these systems will be available to aid in times of emergency in more locations. According to Federal Signal, beyond supporting emergency response, today's mass notification systems have proven to be a valuable asset for everyday, non-emergency, intra- and inter-plant communications. This has become particularly evident in the deployment of interoperable, multi-device communications technology that not only enhances overall plant communications, but provides a host of useful software-based management and administrative tools. Additionally, many of the more traditional approaches to mass notification, i.e., public address and intercom systems, e-mail, and voice and text messaging, provide everyday functionality for plant communications and process control that represents attractive potential for return on investment.

Product versus serviceedit

An emergency communication system may be composed of a product and its associated hardware and software, as owned by the entity using it (e.g., an on-site paging network), or as a service owned and provided by a third-party (e.g., a cellular carrier's SMS network). Each have their own advantages and disadvantages; however, despite perception otherwise, services have some major inherent problems when it comes to effective emergency communications. For instance, using SMS as one example, due to the architecture of cellular networks, text messaging services would not be able to handle a large volume of communications in a short period of time, making this particular type of service a potentially ineffective emergency communication method.

Premises based versus non-premises basededit

Premises based emergency communication systems are those which primarily or wholly exist in the same geographical or structural area as it serves, while non-premises based emergency communication systems are those which exist in a different geographical or structural area. There are advantages and disadvantages of each. Often, non-premises based systems are slower than those that are premises-based, because at the very least, the different locations need to be connected via (usually public) data networks, which may be susceptible to disruption or delay.