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Control room
Collaboration
tools — GoinG
beyond system
Hardware
by
Destiny Heimbecker
Today’s control room is a direct reflection of the
advances being made in information technology and
mobile devices. With an ever increasing number of
video and data sources available, efficient collaboration
and decision-making is only possible if operators and
key stakeholders have easy and timely access to this
information. For this reason, when designing a modern
control room, collaboration software is now as important
as the screens on which the data is being viewed.
Control rooms historically include an array of large
format displays driven by a display wall processor that
accepts inputs from a variety of sources, including
desktop computers, broadcast, and security videos.
There are, however, flaws with this traditional
configuration and the technologies used to create it.
The number one issue being that all of the information is
displayed on only one location, which means that
anyone not physically present in the control room cannot
view the information and therefore act upon it. In other
words, the very strength of the traditional control room
can also be its weakness. Decision makers need to have
access to the critical tools that enable effective
collaboration —such as the ability to create, combine,
and share various user perspectives of data, images, and
video. This means presenting information wherever it is
needed —not only on the control room's display wall
and operator workstations, but outside the control room
as well. This means that the information can be viewed
in crisis rooms, meeting rooms, even outside of the
building, which literally means that it can be viewed by
the applicable people around the world — wherever
decisions need to be made. Collaboration software tools
are the game changer in this industry as they offer the
ability to push content from the control room to an
adjacent war room, share content between operator
screens, provide content collaboration on the main wall,
or even share content with remote desktops and mobile
devices. The control room is no longer constrained to a
single location.
One example of this collaborative control center design
is the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation
Authority. When it was time to upgrade its visualization
platform with a grant from the U.S. Office of Homeland
Security, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation
Authority (SEPTA) had a long list of demands: enhance
real-time situational awareness, boost system reliability,
and facilitate communication among all of its
stakeholders. Eight display walls are networked
throughout the facility, centralizing all information while
providing the ability for operators to share sources on
any and all displays operators can launch visuals from
multiple desktops to create, save, and recall layouts on
the spot. Utilizing Barco’s control room and management
suite collaboration is enhanced between operators,
managers, and other personnel, featuring an intuitive
and easy-to-use sidebar utility. By bringing every
operating system into the command center, SEPTA can
now view activity on all of the region’s subways,
railroads, buses, and trolleys, while connecting with law
enforcement and media channels.
Ron Hopkins, Assistant General Manager of Operations
at SEPTA said, “The seamless screens give us much
more flexibility in how we manage video, so we can
capture and display any feed or image to create a
common operational picture. This is especially useful
when a crisis arises and we need to coordinate with
other agencies.” Ron added, “It’s proven its value many
times already during inclement weather, equipment
breakdowns, and service outages, giving us the
information we need to quickly react and effectively
remedy situations.”
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