Improving the efficiency of deploying volunteers to an emergency using GIS
How can GIS improve the efficiency of response, deploying vehicles and volunteers?
At the British Red Cross, the GIS and Information Management team advise and support all areas of British Red Cross operations with their geographic data and information management needs for humanitarian response.
In 2020, we were approached by our Crisis Response Team to increase the efficiency of deployment of vehicles and volunteers by our Crisis Response Contact Centre.
This team handles incoming requests 24/7 from British Red Cross volunteers, staff, and statutory partners such as emergency services. They deploy teams across the UK to support people displaced by fires, floods, gas leaks — anything that requires people to suddenly evacuate a house, street or area.
The Contact Centre team had been using a combination of tools to deploy teams to incidents, including spreadsheets of contact numbers, locations of teams and vehicles, and online maps to identify time and distance to an incident.
To start off our support to the Crisis Response Contact Centre team to improve the efficiency of their deployments, we formulated a user story:
As a [Crisis Response Call Centre Staff member]; I want to [be able to have a map tool which combines all existing data sources to be able to identify ER vehicles and teams within a set distance of an incident and have the contact details for the on-call duty manager and team information]. This is so [I can quickly and efficiently deploy the most appropriate British Red Cross Emergency Response vehicle and Team to an emergency].
So, how did we go about this?
We looked at the existing methods and the datasets which were being used. We created GIS files from these, that would be needed for a map tool — for example, joining contact details of the on-call duty manager with our British Red Cross areas. As personal data for duty managers (such as emails or phone numbers) were included in some of the datasets, we worked with our Information Governance team to identify what safeguards should be in place, e.g., making sure that only relevant members of staff from the contact centre were able to access the map tool.
We used ArcGIS Online (a web mapping tool) to build out the map to locate the nearest vehicles and teams to a given incident and the duty manager to call within an area.
We tested several versions of the webmap with a small subset of users to help define the final product. For example, we found during testing that teams need to be within 90 minutes of an incident, therefore it was important that we showed all vehicles and teams that could reach a given incident — not just the closest by distance.
The contact centre staff also needed to quickly update the webmap with new or updated information, such as if vehicles were active or not, or if there were updates to on-call duty managers for an area. We provided a smaller set of users access so they could do this independently.
We looked to evaluate the usage and uptake of the map tool from analytics gained from ArcGIS, and could see a steady use overtime, and no dips, showing continued use by the Contact Centre team.
As the Crisis Response Contact Centre develops further and as tooling gets increasingly defined and rolled out, the work completed as part of this project should assist in the evolution of the call centre and requirements.
Three months on, and the team has fully moved over to using the single geo-app to deploy the best placed British Red Cross Emergency Response team and vehicle to an incident.
Impact
This project has improved the efficiency of British Red Cross’ responses to crises as the Contact Centre now works from a single source of the truth, within a single tool, and is able to deploy the best placed vehicle for an incident and communicate key details to partners, staff and volunteers more quickly and efficiently than before.
This new efficiency will allow British Red Cross to support people in crisis faster and more effectively.
