When we think about public safety - police, fire and emergency medical services - we think in terms of protecting the public and Public Safety officers. But not all incidents have successful outcomes. When there are human tragedies we are naturally uncomfortable discussing or even thinking about the economic impact these incidents have, whether they involve damage to property, injury, loss of income or tragically the loss of life. Counting the cost comes later.

When the economic impacts of these incidents are assessed across society as a whole the first thing you notice is the size of the sums involved - they are staggeringly huge. The totals are built up from the fortunately small numbers of major incidents, the ones we all recognise, read about online and see on TV. Examples include the recent flooding in the UK where hundreds of thousands of people were affected or a tunnel fire in the Alps which results in deaths and severed transport links. No amount of investment can prevent natural disasters and no amount of planning can protect against the unforeseen, however improving the response and getting people back on their feet quickly can reduce the impact. At the other end of the scale there is petty vandalism, traffic incidents or burglary. While these incidents, individually, impact only a few members of the public per instance the volumes are substantial. It is the combination of these few large and many very small incidents that add up to the overall socioeconomic impact.

So what is the socioeconomic impact of each additional euro or pound invested in improving the capabilities of the Public Safety organisations? If crime could be cut by 1% or emergency services were able to improve response times by 2%, what would the overall economic benefits to society be? Fortunately we have economists who look at these issues, make calculations and brief our governments so that they can, with better knowledge of the facts, make the tough decisions on where to spend limited resources.

Two recent studies looked into one aspect of Public Safety investment and its socioeconomic value. One report The Socio Economic Value of Mission Critical Mobile Applications for Public Safety in the UK: 2x10MHz in 700MHz undertaken by the LSE found:

“£150 million of efficiency savings per annum if the current efficiency benefits in undertaking some integrated operational duties between the frontline and back-office being obtained by some UK Police Forces (1) were realised across the UK’s Police Force. (Reference 1 - British APCO Journal. January 31, 2012)”

The other undertaken by Wik, The need for PPDR Broadband Spectrum in the bands below 1 GHz, found:

“Given (1) the large numbers of people impacted by a natural disaster, (2) the considerable potential for property damage, and (3) the risk to social cohesion in the aftermath of a disaster, it is clear that even small improvements in the effectiveness of PPDR [Public Protection and Disaster Relief]could have large benefits. Further, it is clear that there is ample room for improved ability to coordinate and interoperate.”

Both reports identify and quantify areas where socioeconomic benefits could result from investment in mission critical applications supported by access to dedicated Public Safety LTE mobile broadband. In the case of the Wik report it also provides readers with “food for thought” scenarios from which their own conclusions can be drawn.

It’s not a comfortable subject to discuss and you really can’t put a price on life, security or people’s safety. Ideally there would be unlimited resources delivering complete safety for all but unfortunately that’s not the case so someone needs to do the calculations and make the argument for investment.

The full reports can be downloaded from the TCCA website here: WIK Study and LSE Study.

David Parry is Director, Solutions Marketing EMEA.

David is on LinkedIn at uk.linkedin.com/in/davidgparry

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