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Fire Control contract won |
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The £200 million contract to supply the IT infrastructure for the Fire Control project national control network has been awarded to system solutions provider EADS Defence and Security Systems.
The announcement was made by Fire Minister Angela Smith on March 7. Speaking of the award, she said: “This is a major step forward for the Fire Control project. The government’s first duty is to protect the public. At the heart of this project is the ability for the control centres to back each other up and to provide information direct to firefighters on the ground. “The technology provided under this contract will help to identify the location of incidents more quickly and precisely, ensure that the correct equipment is mobilised as quickly as possible, and provide firefighters with information on the incident location. Ultimately this will help to further reduce the number of lives lost to fire.” It is planned that the Fire Control project be made up of nine regional standardised control centres, reduced from the current non-networked or standardised 46. EADS – whose background is in defence, security and communications systems - will provide services including automatic caller location, as well as satellite positioning and computer-aided systems to identify the most appropriate appliances to send to an incident based on response time and equipment on board. The company will also provide technology to allow constantly-updated in-cab information regarding a range of subjects including route maps, floor plans, access details, risk and hazard details, standard operating procedures and details of local water supplies.
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