Sydney 2000 Olympics
Mark Watson, Manager OPRO, Sydney Olympics
With Infra on the team, Sydney sets an Olympic first for security management
While the world's attention was focused on the record breaking and personal best performances of the athletes participating in the Sydney 2000 Olympics, behind the scenes the security operation for the Games was setting an Olympic first of its own.
Sydney is the first city hosting the Olympics to have created, with Infra's help, a central database of all security-related incidents occurring during the lead up to and duration of the Games. This database will enable the Sydney team to pass on an audited account of the entire security effort to future Olympic cities, and aid in planning similar large scale events in Australia.
The security of the Games, and of the Paralympics which follow it, has been managed centrally from within the Olympic Precinct and Regional Operations Command Centre (OPRO), operating from the Police Centre in Goulburn St, Sydney.
The OPRO consists of representatives from all agencies with responsibility for public security and safety, from police, fire and ambulance, to intelligence and bomb management. This is the first time a command centre of this size has been brought together for security purposes within Australia.
Central to the OPRO's role was establishing a means whereby everyone involved with Games security would be able to log and track the progress of incidents, and to maintain visibility of activities across the entire security operation.
Numerous agencies brought together by the OPRO had their own internal database and dispatch system, but none of these were suitable for creating a central database into which incidents occurring at scores of different locations could be logged and monitored.
Infra Corporation met the requirements of the OPRO team with its Infra-Help call management system. According to Mark Watson, Manager of the OPRO, without a system like Infra-Help much of the liaison between the different agencies would have been done manually, by phone or radio, which would have increased the propensity for information 'to slip through the cracks.
"The ability to provide a high level of situational awareness across the entire security operation would have been far more difficult."
Watson became aware of Infra-Help during his investigation of suitable systems for the Olympic Security Command Centre, due to its already being utilized by the NSW Police Services IT Help Desk.
He says there was initially some doubt that a help desk system could make the leap to support such an extensive security operation. A number of existing information management products were looked at in the search for a system that met the stringent user and support requirements set by the NSW Police Service.
According to Watson, senior commanders at both the operational and strategic levels of the operation were very pleased with the performance and functionality provided by Infra-Help. The fact that Infra Corporation is based in Sydney and could therefore provide immediate support and on-site training was another important consideration for the OPRO, tasked with meeting the immovable deadline of the Olympics.
Steven Baker of Infra Corporation, who consulted to the OPRO on the project, believes that the high level support given to Infra from within the OPRO, and the general preparedness of the security operation was one of the reasons behind the system's success. Watson and his team knew exactly what they wanted from the system, he says.
'Because Infra-Help is already built around a strong workflow logic, we didn't need to reinvent the wheel in order to adapt it to the requirements of Olympic Security.'
Watson agrees that Infra 'slotted straight into how we operated', rather than security planners needing to modify procedures to suit the system. Infra additionally provided consulting services to Watson and his team to create advanced configurations, which ensured that notification was automatically disseminated to all relevant parties whenever an incident was logged.
The types of incidents logged into Infra-Help during the Olympics ranged from bomb threats to petty theft and lost children at venues. Supporting 150 concurrent users, commanders and support staff involved in security for the Games were able to log incidents and review their progress at any time.
The system ran to all Olympic venues and principle command nodes including Olympic Security's Strategic Command at Games Headquarters. This coverage provided, according to Watson, 'real time' visibility of incidents to security personnel from the Police Commissioner to officers on patrol at venues.
One of the strengths of the system, according to Watson, is its ease of use, particularly as some security personnel using it possessed limited computer literacy. Training exercises conducted early into the deployment of the system inspired confidence in its ability to provide visibility of incidents quickly and easily.
Says Watson, anyone can get any information at any time. 'Infra provides a very good, quick and simple search capability throughout the database.'
A great deal of international interest has been shown in Sydney's Olympic security operation, with members of the Salt Lake City and Athens Olympic Organising Committees visiting the various security command centres in preparation for their own Games.
Mark Watson believes that the reports and auditing provided by the Infra-Help system will provide accurate and comprehensive operational data for others to use in their planning processes for similar events, both in Australia and internationally.
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