Leicestershire FRS Picks Motorola Solutions for Emergency Comms

Leicestershire Fire & Rescue Service (FRS) has selected Motorola Solutions’ command center technology, including Control Room Solution (CRS), to strengthen the service’s call handling and emergency dispatch.

The solution will help to increase the speed, effectiveness and resilience of Leicestershire FRS’s incident response to support frontline and community safety. Ongoing software maintenance will help ensure the critical system remains current.

Serving a population of over one million people across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, Leicestershire FRS manages around 15,000 calls and attends 8,000 emergency incidents on average per year. The service responds to a wide range of emergency situations, from fires, to road traffic collisions and search and rescue missions, whilst also providing community safety and fire prevention services.

“Our control room is integral to our emergency response capabilities. It is the first point of contact in any emergency situation and acts as the ‘eyes and ears’ for our teams," said Callum Faint, chief fire and rescue officer, Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service. “Emergency call handlers operate in fast moving and uncertain environments. They need to be able to gather vital information from emergency calls and quickly relay the details to response teams to help ensure the safety of frontline personnel as they work to protect communities.”

Motorola Solutions’ CRS integrates the control room’s communications into a single intuitive system, accelerating response times and improving operational efficiency. The hosted solution enables the control room to build a clear picture of events from multiple data sources, including real-time data from devices in the field, and provides secure bulk storage for media assets. It supports collaboration and mutual aid between fire services during spate conditions, where a large number of calls are received simultaneously across multiple locations.

“We have developed a solution that enhances the tools available to the control room, whilst simplifying workflows,” said Fergus Mayne, U.K. and Ireland country manager, Motorola Solutions. “Our objective is always to enable control room operators to focus on the call at hand, allowing them to dispatch the appropriate resource as efficiently as possible.”