Central Highlands Regional Council in partnership with QIT Plus is leading the way as the first Queensland council to go live with emergency management software Guardian IMS.
The move is a step towards allowing residents to make confident, on-the-spot decisions – particularly during a crisis or natural disaster.
Coordinator Emergency Management and Community Resilience, Glenn Bell, said the software would benefit road users across the region not only during an emergency.
“We’ve been trialling this for nearly two years with a lot of different stakeholders and it has reduced a lot of anxiety people have about information being delayed.
“With this, people can be confident they’re getting up-to-date information, and it’s a single click for most of the information.”
The software feeds into Council’s emergency management dashboard that has direct links to Weatherzone, Fairbairn Dam levels and identifies school closures.
There is a flood mapping portal as well as contacts for SES, Crimestoppers, ABC radio, local rangers and the RSPCA.
It also links to state government alerts for traffic, health, Bureau of Meteorology, council and fire services.
Council now can publish road works and hazards in real-time, from the field, to its emergency management dashboard and Queensland traffic website.
This includes single lane or full road closures, flooding or physical hazards at accident sites.
The software allows emergency services, government and other agencies to work together from remote locations.
“Guardian IMS is, like most of today’s software, cloud-based and mobile-ready, allowing users from various locations to collaborate.
“Performance monitoring dashboards mean that disaster and emergency management staff across all agencies have improved situational awareness and can escalate incidents as required.
“Spatial intelligence provides real-time windows to incident locations and there are automated tools for triggers that require urgent response.”
