Introduction
At 23:00 hours, 9 December 2004, the Hong Kong Police Force (HKPF) entered a new era in command and control operations with the launch of Phase One of its Third Generation Command and Control Communications System (CCIII) for the New Territories Region. Riding on state-of-the-art information and communication technologies (ICT), CCIII is the mission-critical system that HKPF relies on to support the 999 emergency services from three Regional Command and Control Centres (RCCCs).

CCIII replaces the existing CCII system that has been in service since 1990 and is now near obsolescence. It will be fully operational in the coming months, after a three-phase launch. Phase Two will be operational in the Hong Kong Island Region from May 2005 and Phase Three will be operational in Kowloon East and West Regions from January 2006.

CCIII supports an integrated command and control environment that includes radio, telephone, incident handling, voice logging, and support for external interfaces to computer systems in selected government departments. It is a high performance and reliable system that provides incident handling and dispatching functions to facilitate efficient and effective police responses to emergency service requests from the public.

Equipped with over 10,000 mobile end-user devices, including portable radios, mobile radios and mobile data terminals, CCIII places a heavy emphasis on a territory-wide wireless digital communications network. The system comprises the Integrated Communication System (ICS), the 999 Emergency Telephone System (ETS), the Automatic Vehicle Location System and Geographic Information System (AVLS & GIS), the Mobile Computing and Messaging System (MCS), and the Third Generation Computer Assisted Command and Control System (CACCS3-CORE).

Project requirements and design principles
When HKPF determined that CCII needed to be replaced, the following project requirements were laid down for its successor:

-Adequate system capacity to support normal day-to-day police operations and yet designed for immediate scalability to address the sudden surge of calls during emergency situations;
-Support for both voice and data communications as part of HKPF's ICT application strategy;
-Extensive radio coverage to include all areas essential for Police operations;
-System design based on open standards and planned for scalability;
-Police emergency response vehicles must be equipped with Mobile Data Terminals (MDT) for voice and data communications capabilities;
-Secured digitised transmission platform for protection against eavesdropping and unauthorised access;
-Geographical Information System (GIS) with capabilities for electronic mapping and analysis of location-specific incident information;
-Automatic Vehicle Location System (AVLS) integrated with Global Positioning System (GPS) and GIS for tracking police vehicles on electronic maps;
-Enhancement to existing Enhanced Computer Assisted Command and Control System (ECACCS) with user-friendly graphical user interfaces; and
-999 emergency services telephone sub-system to manage the flow of 999 calls across three Regional Command and Control Centres (RCCC).

The chosen solution
Following completion of the tendering exercise that commenced in early 2002, a HK$540 million contract for the CCIII project was awarded to Motorola Inc on 8 March, 2003. The contract includes a nine-year maintenance service.

Motorola is providing a fully redundant three-zone (switch) Dimetra IP system. The ICS, also known as the beat radio system, is the largest CCIII subsystem and forms the basic wireless communications backbone for dispatchers in the RCCCs and police officers in the field. All major subsystems within the ICS are tightly integrated to provide seamless operation. Overlapping radio coverage is provided by over 100 radio cell sites at hilltops, building tops and road tunnels that are connected to the three zones through leased circuits and the microwave infrastructure.

The radio transport subsystem is an advanced digital microwave transmission backbone that has a main loop providing a high bandwidth of STM-1 (155Mbps) with route diversity to enable multimedia sources to be transmitted with minimal delay and high availability, and spur links with 8 E1 capacity (expandable to 16 E1). The network management subsystem presents the overall system health via centralised fault management, to ensure that any faults are quickly reported and resolved. The maintenance management subsystem enables HKPF technical staff to process data and information to support strategy planning, controlling, executing and decision making with regard to system maintenance issues.

The ICS, owned and operated by HKPF, is based on the TETRA standard, which is an open, digital professional radio technology for public security defined by the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI). The system offers a range of unique features that are not available from other wireless communications platforms. It features fast call set-up time; excellent group communication support; direct mode operation between radios without going through the radio infrastructure; packet data and circuit data transfer services; spectrum efficiency; and excellent security features.

The system's security features include over-the-air encryption and authentication of users, eliminating the risk of eavesdropping by criminal elements and making wireless communication much more secure. The TETRA trunking facility provides a pooling of all radio channels, which are then allocated on demand to individual users.

The ICS also provides a reliable and secure wireless data communication platform for two important mobile IT systems: AVLS & GIS and MCS.

Tracking police vehicles with GPS
The AVLS & GIS system embraces global positioning system (GPS) and geographic information system technologies to enable call takers and dispatchers in the RCCC to identify instantly the location of incidents and police mobile units on digital maps. This function enables dispatchers to deploy the closest mobile unit to handle the incident and thus improves police response time to emergency service requests.

Selected police vehicles and motorcycles will be installed with on-board units (OBUs) with built-in receivers to obtain signals from a satellite. The OBU can compute its own position with an accuracy of within 10 m if it has a good visible link with the satellites. Vehicle positions are reported to the RCCCs in real-time via the TETRA packet data service.

Hong Kong, however, is unique for its high density of tall buildings in urban areas such as Central. This is known in GPS terms as the "urban canyon" effect. This phenomenon significantly reduces GPS coverage in these areas. Apart from differential GPS (DGPS), positioning technologies such as dead reckoning (DR) and map matching (MM) are also deployed to ensure the accuracy of the AVLS to compensate for the loss of GPS signals. DR computes its own positions from the direction and speed data continuously obtained from the gyroscope and speedometer in the vehicle while MM adjusts vehicle positions according to road centreline data.

Mobile messaging with MDT and portable radios
Making use of the packet data service and short data service capabilities in TETRA, the MCS system enables frontline officers to use their portable radios and in-vehicle MDT to exchange data messages with RCCCs. It also enables them to access information on various databases, including the Enhanced Police Operational Nominal Index Computer System (EPONICS) for wanted or missing person checks; the Transport Department's Driver Licence Integrated Data System (VALID) for vehicle information and stolen vehicle checks; and the Immigration Department's Registration of Persons (ROP) system for forged ID card checks.

In addition to the emergency button, there is a "hot-hit" message feature designed to improve the safety of beat officers. If a database check identifies a wanted person, the query result will be returned to the enquiring officer at the same time the controller at the RCCC and officers of the same radio talk group (usually on the same beat) are alerted to the result. This ensures that backup will be provided to the officer, who may be in danger.

There are advantages to exchanging information through data messages rather than voice communication. Textual information such as incident address and dispatch details can be delivered more accurately. Moreover, lower priority messages are sent via data channels, and hence voice channels will be more readily available for more important communications.

Wireless LAN and CACCS3-CORE
The need to update software and map data on the MDTs in vehicles poses a problem since the ICS is not suitable for this task due to its limited data throughput. A wireless LAN (local area network) compliant with IEEE 802.11g is used to provide the necessary data throughput of up to 54 Mbps within a range of 100 m. Access points will be installed in police station car parks. Software distribution will be automatically performed when the vehicles enter the police stations.

At the heart of the CCIII system lies the CACCS3-CORE. This key computer system provides high performance, reliable incident handling and dispatching functions as well as gateway connection to a number of databases. Developed in-house by the Information System wing of the HKPF, CACCS3-CORE replaces the existing Enhanced Computer Assisted Command and Control System and will be integrated with CCIII. For example, the "hot-hit" message feature as well as more comprehensive and easy to use resource dispatching functions are provided through its integration with ICS and MCS. Integration with the automatic location identification feature of the 999 Emergency Telephone System allows the call-taker to see instantly on CACCS3-CORE and the GIS map the location of the fixed-line caller and the incident. This function is very useful for identifying the location of callers who may not be able to express themselves clearly, such as children.

Improved end-users benefits and public service
To police officers, the new system provides the following major benefits:
-Enhanced radio coverage, both in terms of cross-communication between frontline officers and areas covered;
-The new handheld radios are lighter and smaller than the existing CCII radios;
-The new digitised, air-to-air encrypted transmission platform greatly enhances protection against eavesdropping and unauthorised access.

To the public, the new system improves police services in the following ways:
-It allows frontline officers to directly access various information systems through their radios
-The new 999 Emergency Telephone System provides a speedier response to emergency calls when all lines are engaged by overflowing calls to designated consoles for handling 999 calls in each RCCC, to deal with sudden surges. The new caller address subsystem also enables call takers to search the reported caller address information (fixed line) for speedier response.
-Serving as an integrated communications system for beat patrol officers and patrol officers deployed to the Traffic Branch, Police Tactical Unit (PTU) and Emergency Unit (EU), the new system improves communications between frontline officers and facilitates the efficient and effective deployment of resources during emergencies and large-scale operations.
-With AVLS and GIS, the Police is able to keep track of the position of police emergency response vehicles on electronic maps and direct the nearest vehicle, if not otherwise engaged, to the scene of a crime or incident. This facilitates more flexible and efficient deployment of resources and faster tactical response to incidents.

CCIII is not only a digital radio infrastructure built to an open standard, which allows an incremental approach to future system enhancement; it is also the most cost-effective, scalable and interoperable communication platform for the public safety organisations of the Hong Kong SAR. CCIII is being developed as a common radio platform shared by multi-disciplinary agencies and government departments. For everyday usage, each agency has virtually its own section of the platform for its exclusive use with absolute security and autonomy, like a Virtual Private Network (VPN). During emergency situations, the system can be re-programmed to facilitate inter-operability amongst various agencies, centralised command of communications as well as control of resource deployment.

International project management and system integration
CCIII is an extremely complex, large-scale system that requires multifaceted project management. The most challenging undertaking for the project teams is the integration of the different system components. The CCIII project is one of the most unique ICT projects in Hong Kong as it consists of numerous elements from different engineering disciplines (electronics, information, building services, CAI, and electrical), and many of them are being implemented in Hong Kong for the first time.

To cope with this challenge, seven integrated project teams (IPT) comprising HKPF engineers and police officers as well as Motorola staff are formed to oversee system design, installation, implementation, testing, training and services. These IPTs are working 24/7 worldwide and each IPT draws representative members from all the stakeholders to ensure the interests of all parties are served. Most importantly, this approach ensures all operational requirements are well met, within budget and on schedule.

System interfaces between subsystems are always the most challenging work for a system integration project and have to be done properly upfront. Thirty-four interface control documents were developed to specify the protocol, data flow, and other necessary information the subsystems require to communicate with each other.

The fact that CCIII Phase 1 was successfully rolled out on 9th December 2004, according to the contract, is evidence of the quality of the project management and system integration. With CCIII's advanced wireless and mobile computing technologies, HKPF remains at the frontier in the application of advanced technologies for public security.

About the authors: Ir Jolly Wong is head of the Third Generation Command and Control Communications System Division of Hong Kong Police. Ir K F Man is the telecommunications engineer of the Third Generation Command and Control Communications System Division of Hong Kong Police. K M Pang is Motorola Asia Pacific Ltd's project manager for Third Generation Command and Control Communications System.

The New Territories Regional Command and Control Centre

Screen shot of the AVLS & GIS System

Police officers with the Motorola MTP750 portables

Application interface diagram