A Dispatch-Mediated Communication Model for Emergency Response Systems

Abstract

The current state of emergency communication is dispatch-mediated (the messages from the scene are directed towards the responders and agencies through the dispatch agency). These messages are logged in electronic documents called incident reports, which are useful in monitoring the incident, off-site supervision, resource allocation, and post-incident analysis. However, these messages do not adhere to any particular structure, and there is no set format. The lack of standards creates a problem for sharing information among systems and responders and has a detrimental impact on systems interoperability. In this article, we develop a National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) and Universal Core (UCORE) compliant messaging model, considering message structures and formats, to foster message standardization.