Public safety communications centers: are we prepared for the new technologies coming our way?
This thesis explores the impact of rapidly evolving emerging technologies on public safety communications centers. It is intended to further the discussion on whether the public safety community is prepared for these new technologies, which will likely become commonplace over the next several years, and how to prepare to integrate those technologies into existing structures. Through the use of a nominal group technique and cross-impact analysis, this thesis utilized a pre-collected data set concerning the risks, structure, governance, policy and external influences associated with public safety communications centers in light of emerging technological advancements to determine what trends and events were of the greatest concerns to those actively involved in the leadership of public safety communications centers, development of emerging technologies, and implementation of governance models used by the various agencies. Those findings were analyzed and strategies were identified to allow for successful mitigation of the most statistically significant risks. Ultimately, this thesis determined that through visionary leadership, effective strategic planning and mitigation of risk, public safety agencies could position themselves for successful implementation of emerging technologies with their communications centers.
Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School