Dubai Civil Defence 'Safety Dashboards' in buildings for emergencies

The Dubai Civil Defence has unveiled its new ‘Life Safety Dashboard’, which will connect all residential and commercial buildings with the authority to provide real-time feeds of emergencies that could be detrimental in saving lives.

DCD stated these dashboards are already connected with 65,000 buildings and public transportation depots across the emirate, with future plans in place to work with private homeowners and residential apartments to connect directly with DCD for added coverage in time of emergency.

The authority also stated other government entities would also be integrated as part of this pilot project to assist in response time in road safety emergencies.

Meanwhile, creator Pacific Controls has also stated such dashboards would also be unveiled for private individuals as part of an emirate-wide safety campaign.

Speaking with ‘Emirates 24|7’, Major-General Rashed Thani Al Matrooshi, Commander in Chief of DCD further explained the new initiative, stating: "This dashboard will provide real-time feeds to the DCD Command Centre, giving updates on the specifics of emergencies that have arisen in a building.

"Such knowledge will allow us to ascertain the level of assistance required, along with providing real-time information of which emergency vehicles and fire station is within the community to respond at its earliest."

As the name states, the dashboard is a cloud server that will link all commercial, public and residential buildings, with further detailed information such structural layout, schematics, along with working in conjunction with sensors within these units that will allow DCD to narrow down the exact origin of the blaze.

The dashboard further divides the emirate into three zones: hot, warm and cold; the first denotes the area which has reported the highest number of emergencies, followed by medium and the cold represents the least number or incidences.

Al Matrooshi further added: "The alarm sensors will be able to pinpoint the exact nature of the fire, be it originated in the gas panel, the elevator or elsewhere. As soon as the DCD is alerted of the nature of the incident on the system, a call is put through to the building management to verify if the situation is legitimate or an error.

"Once this has been ascertained, the system will provide real-time locations of vehicles within the zone to be dispatched accordingly."

A backlog of alarm history for each building will provide further information for the DCD to work systematically.

Dilip Rahulan, Executive Chairman of Pacific Controls stated: "The dashboards have already been implemented in 65,000 buildings across Dubai, with the system in place to reach out to 300,000 individual homes to be included on the system.

"This will further allow individuals to monitor the safety of their homes even when they are travelling out of the country."

The linkage for building owners and private residences will not be free though, with Colonel Rashid bin Massam Al Buflaseh, Civil Defence General Director Office Manager stating: "The approximate cost for each building will be around Dh2,000, with individual logins ranging from Dh40 to higher in some cases.

"But when you think about the pricing structure, is there any price you wouldn’t pay for your personal safety and your loved ones?"

The authority has also not ruled out these dashboards also being systematically set up in individual vehicles and homes in future, with Rahulan adding: "Why stop there? We are closely working with other government departments to apply such measures on major highways and ultimately, have a dashboard that will link every single individual in the emirate.

"Maybe in the next 24 months or so."

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