BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN: To address unprecedented security challenges and high public expectations, the Royal Brunei Police Force (RBPF) will overhaul its current system and implement in stages a new National Digital Communication System (NDCS) over the next three years, Borneo Bulletin reported.
The new system, which will cost B$22 million, will comprise seven sub-systems – Digital Radio Network (DRN), Computer Aided Dispatch System (CAD), Automatic Vehicle Location System (AVLS/ Geographical Information System), Mobile Data Communication System (MDCS), Emergency Response Centre (ERC), Command and Control Centre (CCC) and Wireless Messaging System (WMS).
The system is currently used by police forces in a number of countries including Korea, Hong Kong and recently Singapore.
The signing of design, supply, delivery, installation, testing, training, commission and maintenance of the NDCS with related hardware and software for RBPF to embark on the system, which is also known as Communication Technology System – Command, Control, Communication, Computerised and Integrated System (C4IS) – was held yesterday at the Rizqun International Hotel and was witnessed by the Commissioner of Royal Brunei Police Force, Dato Seri Pahlawan Bahrin bin Mohd Noor.
The signing was between RBPF and Telekom Brunei Berhad (TelBru). Representing the Government of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam was Assistant Commissioner of Police Mohd Irwan bin Hj Hambali, Acting Director of General Administration and Finance and witnessed by Senior Superintendent Pg Mohd Jefri bin Pg Hj Abd Hamid, the Acting Director of Logistics.
Signing on the dotted line for Telekom Brunei Berhad was David Kay, the CEO, and witnessed by Lim Ming Soon, TelBru’s Chief Marketing Officer.
Describing the system, Senior Superintendent Pg Mohd Jefri said, “It will replace the labour intensive/ manual system with ICT technology. It will establish an efficient method of providing services to the public in emergency situations and enable the right resources to attend an incident or a crisis. It can also eliminate duplication, provide centralised emergency and operational information as well as two-way encrypted digital radio communications.
“The new system is also capable of continuously monitoring activities of officers and enabling the command and control centre to provide better management of information in relation to the response and action taken by the officers.”
He said the project, costing B$22 million, will be implemented in phases within 36 months. The implethentation will involve the overhaul of the current business process and police practices.
To ensure that the transition from the current to new system is successful, Pg Mohd Jefri said, “It is important to exercise care with the implementation of the new system and procedures, as poor implementation will not improve services and might even worsen the situation.”
Therefore, he urged for the successful implementation of the project and sought full cooperation from commanders/managers to give their full support to staff in using the system.
He commended TelBru’s experience in the implementation of ICT system and the technical working group committee believes that the project implementation will be done as planned.
DRN is the core of the system and its digital mobile radio communications network is in line with the European Telecommunications standard institute TETRA. It will provide trunked encrypted radio system and will replace the current analog conventional radio network used by RBPF. The DRN will be used for voice and data communication by RBPF and will eventually also be used by other emergency and governmental agencies.
CAD will help receive emergency calls, accurately record details, assist in ensuring that the most appropriate resources are dispatched to the scene of the incident in the shortest possible time. The CAD sub-system will integrate with AVLS mapping and also sending as well as receiving of messages via MDCS.
AVLS/Geographical Information System will provide an integrated automatic vehicle location and public safety mapping application to track the locations of police vehicles, vessels and motorcycles in real time to support the dispatch of personnel closest to the scene of incident.
MDCS will provide access to police officers in the field using Mobile Data Terminals (MDTS) in vehicles and vessels to information from the centralised database on criminal records and vehicle registrations. In addition, police officers can also file reports directly via mobile data reporting system to eliminate redundancy of data capturing and to reduce input errors.
ERC is designed to take emergency voice calls from the public. The consoles to receive calls will be located’ at the Command and Control Centre (CCC) as well as selected district headquarters. The ERC system will receive caller location information from the caller address system and pass it to the CAD system.
The CCC will house all the sub-system server/ equipment as well as resources. The CCC will be have a modern design with state-of-the-art technology to enhance the operational capability of RBPF.
The Wireless Messaging System serves as messaging alerts via digital radio communication and mobile phones to enhance communication between radio users.