UK DISASTERS AND EMERGENCY SERVICE COMMUNICATIONS

Ronald Hewlett

UK Home Office

INTRODUCTION

This paper supports and gives background information to a presentation given at the ETSI Disaster Telecommunications Workshop at Sophia Antipolis on 26th – 27th February 2002.

ROLE OF THE HOME OFFICE

In the United Kingdom, the Home Office is the equivalent of the Interior Ministry, Department of the Interior or similar organisations in other countries. Its main roles include:

  • Police in England and Wales.
  • Allocation of frequencies in bands designated for use by Home Office user services
  • Airwave project. This is a TETRA digital radio trunked system shared between the police and many other organisations. The system is specified to give 100% mobile coverage on roads throughout England, Wales and Scotland. Extensive areas of handheld cover are also provided. The first police force transferred to the system in 2001 and the rollout is expected to be completed in 2004/5.
  • Providing advice on all aspects of police radio communications including installation of TETRA terminals in vehicles, testing vehicles to assess susceptibility to TETRA transmissions etc.

The Home Office was responsible for Fire Brigades in England and Wales until the summer of 2001, when responsibility was transferred to the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. The same applied to Emergency Planning, which is now part of the Cabinet Office.

The Home Office is not responsible for the Ambulance Service. They are the responsibility of the Department of Health.

DISASTERS THAT HAVE AFFECTED POLICE/FIRE COMMUNICATIONS

There have been a number of disasters in the UK where the inquiry into the disaster made recommendations on Police and/or Fire communications. Three are highlighted in the presentation. These were chosen as very thorough investigations into all aspects of the disasters were carried out and many recommendations made.

Kings Cross Underground Fire – November 1987

Kings Cross is on the northern side of Central London. It is a very busy Underground station, as three underground (metro) lines pass through it. Kings Cross railway station is used by commuters living north and north-east of London and for long distance trains to the north of England and Scotland.

The cause of the disaster was a fire under one of the escalators just after the evening rush hour. At that time, smoking was permitted on underground stations, and the cause of the fire was thought to be a match that a smoker had dropped whilst it was still burning. The escalators were made of wood and there was a build up of grease and dust under the escalator.

31 people died in the blaze, and many more were injured. The Government appointed a leading lawyer (Desmond Fennell OBE QC) to undertake an investigation into the fire and to make recommendations. His report was published in 1988. The report contains many recommendations. Only those that affect communications are mentioned here and they have been summarised to highlight the communications issue:

  • The emergency services and London Underground shall review the exchange of information between themselves and London Underground during an incident both at their controls and at site.
  • London Fire Brigade should nominate an officer to attend at London Fire Brigade Headquarters as soon as a major incident seems likely to develop. A Fire Brigade office at the scene of the incident should liaise with London Underground and each of the emergency services.
  • The London Fire Brigade and British Transport Police radio equipment shall be made compatible. (Note:- British Transport Police are responsible for policing on the Underground and on railway trains).
  • London Fire Brigade must improve the means of radio communications below ground.

Clapham Junction Railway Accident – December 1988

Clapham Junction is situated in South London and claims to be the busiest railway station in the UK. Frequent trains on many lines all packed with commuters pass through this station during the peak periods.

A train colliding with the rear of another train on the same track caused the disaster. This was due to a failure of the signalling system in that area. The front carriages of the stationary train veered into the path of a third train travelling in the opposite direction on an adjacent track. As a result of the accident, 35 people died and nearly 500 were injured, 69 of them seriously.

The Government appointed Anthony Hidden QC to undertake an investigation into the accident and to prepare a report. This was published in 1989. The report contains many recommendations. Only those that affect communications are mentioned here and they have been summarised to highlight the communications issue:

  • The Emergency Services shall improve the communications between them to ensure, in particular, that the declaration of a Major Incident by any service is immediately passed by a dedicated phone line to all other services and acted on by them. The systems shall be tested daily and the tests logged.
  • Emergency Services shall carry out exercises simulating a Major Incident on a regular basis to test specifically their communications systems.
  • Ambulance Services shall review procedures to ensure that the designated and supporting hospitals are given a major incident warning as early as possible.
  • Emergency Services shall provide local radio communication at the accident site to facilitate liaison between the control units and experts on site.
  • The Ambulance Service shall provide aerials at all designated hospitals for radiotelephone communications in an emergency. The transmitter/receiver shall be provided on declaration of a Major Incident.

Hillsborough Football Disaster – April 1989

Hillsborough football stadium is in South Yorkshire in the north of England, just outside Sheffield. The football ground was chosen as a neutral venue for a FA Cup semi-final game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest football clubs. A large number of spectators came to watch the game and there were considerable problems with a large number of fans trying to get through the turnstiles into the ground just before kick-off. Several gates were opened to relieve the congestion and pushing outside the ground, but this resulted in parts of the terraces becoming severely overcrowded. Surges in the crowd, common at football matches, caused the fans at the front of the terraces to be crushed against the fences stopping the fans invading the pitch. There were gates in these fences that would allow fans onto the pitch, but there were delays in opening these due to those in control not fully appreciating the problem and failures in the communications system. The game was stopped after 5½minutes.

The overall result was that 95 people died and over 400 received hospital treatment.

One UHF two-frequency channel was in use at the ground for police communications. This was operated on ‘talkthrough’ where all transmissions on the base receive channel are rebroadcast on the base transmit channel. This has the advantage of being an ‘all informed’ net. The base station operates in duplex mode, where the transmitter and receiver operate simultaneously. The hand held terminals carried by the police at the ground operated in simplex mode, where the terminal either transmits or receives. The operator in the control room can switch the base station out of talk-through if required, but this was not possible at times that afternoon due to faults in the system. The police UHF channel therefore became unusable due to a number of police officers trying to contract control at the same time. Every user had equal priority on the system.

An Interim and then a Final report were published following the disaster. Recommendations about communications in the Interim report and withdrawn in the final report have been excluded from the following list.

  • There should be sufficient operators in the police control room to enable all radio transmissions to be received, evaluated and answered.
  • The radio system should be such as to give operators in the control room priority over, and the capacity to override, others using the same channel.
  • Additional channels should be used, where necessary, to prevent overcrowding of the airwaves.
  • There should always be command channel reserved solely for the Police Commander to communicate with his senior officers round the ground.

Recommendations were also made about

  • A stem of dedicated land lines around the ground and
  • Liaison and lines of communication between Police, Fire and Ambulance services.

CHANGES IN POLICE COMMUNICATIONS SINCE THE ABOVE DISASTERS

The following are some of the changes in Police communications:

  • Twelve Emergency and Event channels are now available in the UHF bands. The use of these is coordinated locally between police forces.
  • New hand held UHF radio terminals have been introduced with additional range and a considerable increase in the number of radio channels that can be selected.
  • One UHF radio channel has been designated at the Inter Agency channel for use by Senior Officers.

ORGANISATIONS INVOLVED AT MAJOR DISASTERS

Many organisations are involved in the event of a major disaster. Some of these are involved at the scene of the disaster; some solely in the surrounding area and some cover a much wider area. The following list highlights the range of organisations involved. It is not complete, and the range of organisations required depends upon the type of disaster.

Police – both on the ground and in the air / Fire / Ambulance – including the air ambulance service
British Transport Police – involved if the disaster affects the railways or the Underground / St. John’s voluntary ambulance service / Local hospitals
Salvation Army – food and hot drinks plus support to victims and their relatives / Women’s Royal Voluntary Service – food and hot drinks plus support to victims and their relatives / Local Authorities – numerous different roles including stretcher bearers, road diversions, clearing trees etc.
Mountain Rescue/Cave Rescue/Search & Rescue Dogs / Coastguard – for disasters at sea or on the sea shore / Royal National Lifeboat Institute
Royal Air Force helicopters used for Search and Rescue both inland and at sea / British Telecommunications – to supply telephones and other communications links / Cellular telephone operators – to provide the emergency services with priority access to the cellular telephone system to prevent congestion barring access.

The above list is intended to highlight the major communications problems ensuring that each of the participating organisations is aware of the scale of the problem and to receive information appropriate to their needs.

COMMUNICATIONS AT DISASTERS AND IN SURROUNDING AREAS

The previous section highlighted the range of organisations involved when a disaster happens.

At the Scene

Police, Fire and Ambulance need to gain access to those affected by the disaster, treat the wounded, tag and note the location of the dead for future identification and transport the wounded to local hospitals by ambulance or Air Ambulance. Senior Medical Officer needs to communicate with medical staff on site and with designated hospitals to warn them of the number of injured being transported for treatment.

In the Immediate Surroundings

Police to control traffic and crowds/press to ensure that Emergency Service vehicles and aircraft can gain access to the scene and transport the wounded to local hospitals.

Local Authority staff to undertake multiple duties such as making street lights safe, arranging for accommodation for treatment of the wounded, handling friends and relatives of those involved, working with the Voluntary Services re the supply of food and drink to all concerned.

Further Away

Hospitals to be kept informed of the size of the disaster, including the likely number of injured needing hospital treatment.

Police to control traffic so that the area surrounding the disaster does not get congested.

STANDARDISATION REQUIREMENTS

Communication systems at the above disasters were relatively simple, being single and dual frequency analogue radio channels without any form of priority access or no/limited linking between systems.

ETSI has been developing a series of specifications for a digital trunked system called TETRA. This system incorporates many features that should overcome most of the problems highlighted above. Some of these are as follows:

  • Talk-groups so that groups of users can communicate independently on the same radio system.
  • Talk-groups can be combined as required to link different groups of users.
  • Levels of priority are available to ensure that those who need to be able to access the system during congestion can do so at the expense of users with lower priority
  • Encryption, so that the press and the general public cannot monitor Emergency service communications and thus impede their work by moving to where ‘the action is taking place’.
  • Linking TETRA systems via the Inter Systems Interface and to other systems via gateways.

ETSI TETRA working groups are currently working on enhancing specifications for the Inter System Interface and for TETRA Release 2. Work being undertaken as part of Release 2 includes enhancements to the codec to reduce the requirement for transcoding between TETRA and GSM cellular radio networks.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Most of the information in this paper was derived from official reports on the major disasters. Copies of the reports were borrowed from Government departmental libraries. Due to the length of time between publication and the present, these reports are likely to be out of print and therefore not generally available to the General Public. The libraries at the Emergency Planning College or the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions may be able to assist with supplying photocopies of relevant sections of reports.

Reports on Disasters

Kings Cross Underground Fire

Investigation into the King’s Cross Underground Fire Desmond Fennell OBE QC. ISBN number 0 10 104992 7. Cm 499.

Clapham Junction Train Crash

Investigation into the Clapham Junction Railway Accident by Anthony Hidden QC. ISBN number 0 10 108202 9. Cm 820.

Hillsborough Stadium Disaster

Inquiry by The Rt. Hon Lord Justice Taylor. Interim report ISBN number 0 10 1076525 Cm 765. Final report ISBN 0 10 109622 4 Cm 962.

HMSO

The initial point of contact for the supply of reports is Her Majesty’s Stationary Office (HMSO). This organisation manages and regulates the use and the licensing of the re-use of all information produced by government that is protected by Crown copyright.

Their web site is

Emergency Planning College

The Emergency Planning College is 12 miles north of York, based at the Hawkhills, a country estate in the Vale of York. The College offers a wide range of courses on Emergency Planning.

Their web site is This site gives details of the college, courses available and how to contact the various departments in the college.

The College has a library that holds the UK's largest collection of emergency planning information. It

  • Underpins the work of the Emergency Planning College
  • Provides an on-site learning resource for college delegates
  • Provides a residential research facility to the Emergency Planning community
  • Provides a dial-in enquiry service throughout the year

The Library and Information Centre has also developed a reputation for excellence, and has been designated by the European Commission as the UK Documentation Centre for Emergency Planning.

The Department of Environment, Local Government and the Regions

This is the Government Department with responsibility for Fire Brigades and Railways amongst may other responsibilities. Until recently it was called the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.

Their web site is It contains details of how to contact the Department and has reports on recent disasters such as the Paddington Rail crash and the one in Hertfordshire.

Cabinet Office

Responsibility for Emergency Planning in the United Kingdom recently transferred from the Home Office to the Cabinet Office. They have a new web site that deals with contingency plans and is well worth a visit. The web site is

Emergency Telecommunications26th – 27th February 2002 ETSI Sophia Antipolis France

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