Perform Green are extremely proud of our teams involvement with the launch of a state of the art smart operations centre in Bristol.
After years of planning and months of hard work a state of the art, multi-purpose centre has opened to bring together some of Bristol’s critical support services and act as a control centre in the event of an emergency. Driven by a collaborative and innovative vision the new centre integrates the council’s Emergency Control Centre, Traffic Control Centre and Community Safety (CCTV) Control Rooms into one space for the first time. These teams provide essential public safety services that utilise 700 CCTV cameras around the city.
Perform Green have been driving the councils vision of a truly cross departmental operations centre that can cater to a wide range of individual needs across the city, with a focus on the transformational nature of having not just the people but a robust digital strategy at the heart of their long-term plans.
A large part of the facility’s role is to manage the city’s traffic network and monitor the flow of traffic around Bristol, making adjustments to signals and putting diversions in place to keep traffic moving. The centre also provides a home for staff from First West of England Bus to work alongside the council’s Traffic Signals team, aiming to provide greater reliability in bus services and more accurate real-time information about service status.
Perform Green’s founder and Programme Director for the Operations Centre, Barney Smith highlights:
“The collaborative and innovative approach taken by Bristol City Council and our team will have a real tangible benefit in the long run for the people of Bristol, with cost savings being realised, revenue models established, and a city that will run more smoothly against the continuing demands of a growing population. We are extremely proud to have been involved in such a bold programme of work and to make our smart society vision a reality.”
To manage the range of services provided, the centre has been built around an advanced communication platform that links into the city’s high-speed fibre network. The link to this high speed network will also allow the centre to explore communications developments that could one day provide services in areas such as health protection, traffic management, waste management and energy monitoring.
Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, said:
“This new centre represents an investment in the safety of citizens and getting the city moving. The challenges we face to beat congestion, support vulnerable people in their homes and secure safer streets require new approaches and new ways of working. By blending state of the art technology and a collaborative approach to sharing operations we’re taking a positive step towards meeting these challenges.”
In the event of an emergency incident the centre has the ability to become a tactical and strategic group venue, hosting representatives from emergency services and other organisations to plan and co-ordinate the response to that incident.
Andrew Everitt, Head of Exercising at the Cabinet Office Emergency Planning College, said:
“The new operations centre in Bristol is world class and provides an enviable facility for diverse responder organisations to work together in managing all types of incidents and events, from response through to recovery. Interoperability sits at the core of good emergency management and this new facility has been designed with this in mind.”
The centre has already proven valuable in managing emergency incidents, event response and co-ordination. These examples have involved multi-agency working, co-ordinating responses from transport providers, emergency services and Council departments.
The Mayor said:
“Collaboration is critical if we’re to better manage the city and respond to the needs of people across Bristol. Our partners in health, police, fire and rescue, transport providers and other sectors will make use of the centre to co-ordinate our response to issues when they arise, making sure the right decisions are taken when action is needed.”
The centre operates 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. It provides a list of services including emergency response to telecare and assistive technology users, alarm and security monitoring , lone worker support, CCTV management, traffic signal monitoring, set up and review of traffic signals and many others.
The breadth of what the centre covers is vast with over 200 junctions monitored, almost 40 traffic and information signs managed, 46,500 welfare and telecare calls handled every month, and specialist staff working around the clock managing the CCTV network of 700 cameras.
Perform Green were asked to lead the Operations Centre delivery from working with contractors on the build and finish through to exploring new business and income opportunities for the council. With an objective role Perform Green could work across departments, committing to meeting timelines, budgets and commercial objectives for the project.
Patsy Mellor, Service Director, Citizen Services, Bristol City Council commended Perform Green’s contribution saying:
“Perform Green came in and provided the leadership, strategy and pace we needed. We have just completed phase 1 – which was the build and implementation, phase 1 finished on time, under budget and exceeding all expectations.
Our first multi-agency partner has moved in and our World Class Smart City Operations centre is moving into Phase 2 – I would recommend the team, Barney, Jim, David and Nikki to anyone wanting to make big differences – their expertise advice and leadership has ensured we have exceeded our own ambitious expectations.”
If you are working on a Smart Operations Centre, or addressing a Smart City approach as part of your strategic direction, or you just want to know more about how to make a project like this a reality, then get in touch directly and we will be more than happy to help.
You can read our case study about the Smart Operations Centre here, as well as testimonials about our team here.
Contact Lara Moloney, Head of Business Development – lara.moloney@performgreen.co.uk