Bedfordshire Fire & Rescue Service pioneers cloud-based control room

Bedfordshire Fire & Rescue Service serves a population of 665,000. As part of its ongoing digital transformation, it needed to replace its legacy control room functionality. The new control room solution provides the control room staff – who receive over 60,000 calls per year - the best digital tools to respond effectively. It also provides IT staff with a fully reliable end-to-end workflow, which is easy to manage through the cloud. Together with enhanced security and availability, the CommandCentral software offers integrated voice, data and multimedia communications on a single platform where all data is easily captured and processed, so that incidents can be responded to and reported as efficiently as possible.

The new cloud-based control centre simplifies IT management including the ability to scale data capacity at busy times and reduce costs through the automation of tasks, such as reporting, that were previously done manually. A hosted solution also enhances resilience and support for agile working, so that staff can work remotely and from different sites. In addition, being cloud-based ensures equipment is more secure and resilient. 

“We strive to provide an outstanding Fire and Rescue Service to the citizens and visitors of Bedfordshire and lead the way with the latest digital technologies to respond faster and more effectively,” says Paul Fuller CBE, Chief Fire Officer at Bedfordshire Fire & Rescue Service. “Our control room is at the epicentre of our operations and needs to be failsafe so that every vital piece of information is captured and responded to as efficiently as possible. Through our work with Motorola Solutions and 3tc, we wanted to make a future-proof investment and be the first Fire and Rescue Service to adopt full cloud technology for our control room to further improve our robust, 24/7 operation to make us more responsive and help protect our community.”  

“Bedfordshire Fire & Rescue Service is clearly a pioneer when it comes to developing a cloud-based control room,” says Fergus Mayne, Country Manager and Head of Sales UK & Ireland at Motorola Solutions. “As the next evolution of public safety technology, the new solution can be relied upon as it can be managed remotely with 24/7 support with greater resilience. Ultimately, the new platform enables control room staff to focus on the job at hand – resolve the call at the first contact or dispatch resources in the most efficient way possible to protect the public.”