ECU ASSIST currently undergoing testing

If successful, new project could be answer to a host of ECU safety concerns

Elisa Bizzotto, The East Carolinian

March 22, 2006

An innovative new emergency alert and tracking system, which could potentially provide greater security to students, faculty and staff if successful, is currently undergoing testing for effectiveness and performance. ECU ASSIST, as the pilot project has been named, is a collaborative effort between Campus Police and Public Safety, Campus Living, the ECU Technology Advancement Center and Disabilities and Support Services in which the primary purpose is to develop a system on campus that could resolve many security issues as well as provide support to those in emergency situations. Participants for the pilot project include 12 Safety Committee Members, nine Residence Hall Advisors, six Disabilities and Support Services personnel, five staff members, and three Technology Advancement Center staff members to combine a total of 35 active participants. The test location for the project is central campus, specifically involving Cotton, Fleming and Jarvis Residence halls, as well as the Flanagan building, Student Health Services, Joyner East, Joyner Library and the mall area.

The way in which the system will work is rather simple in that it was intentionally designed for mobility and subtlety. Each test participant is designated a personal transmitter which is smaller in size than the average mobile phone. The participant can either carry the device or, for those that require assistive transportation, the device can be attached to a wheelchair, scooter, walker, etc. If at any time the participant is in need of emergency medical assistance or is faced with a threatening situation, the participant simply presses a button on the hand-held device and a signal is sent to the telecommunication dispatch office in the campus police building just a couple hundred yards from the mall area. An alarm is then triggered on a PC in the office and the name and picture of the participant who activated the alert emerges on screen. The participant's location is then determined through a triangulated system in which receivers in the designated buildings transmit the alert signal, and the three that pick up the strongest signal pinpoint a location and transmit it to a map on the PC. Police officers are dispatched to the scene and continuous updates are provided to the dispatcher in the direction the participant is traveling after activating the alert. The updates continue for 15 minutes, at which point the signal is lost if the transmitter is not activated a second time. In the event that no real emergencies occur within the testing period, each participant is required to test their alarm on a specific day of the week resulting in up to five alarm tests per day.

Because the project is in a pilot stage, the hand-held transmitter is only picked up if the participant is inside or in close proximity of one of the designated buildings or in the mall area. Ideally, if the system is in fact implemented on campus, all campus locations would be wired and the receivers would be able to transmit signals activated from as far out as Fifth Street and the freshman parking lot. Furthermore, each individual would also have the option of including personal information into the system along with pictures and names, such as troubled relationships or specific medical ailments for example, to provide more knowledge to dispatch officers in the event that they require emergency assistance.

The technical system selected for use in the project is BOSCH Security Escort System, done so for its success in tracking and locating people in and outside of buildings. The system was installed throughout the fall semester and early this spring, and testing just recently began at the beginning of this month. It will continue on through mid-April at which point implementation and evaluation of the system will begin. The estimated time for which all three phases of the pilot project will be complete is sometime this summer. At the completion of the pilot, the heads of each division involved will determine the success of the project and ideally provide a proposal to implement the system on campus.

The idea for the project stemmed from Director of the ECU Technology Advancement Center, J. Barry DuVall, and Assistant Director, Matthew Powell's desire to implement a system that would be proactive in resolving growing safety and security concerns rather than reactive. They expressed that past crime and safety issues on the ECU campus as well as on campuses across the country can be accredited, in part, to their idea for this initiative.

While universities in other states use similar systems to better secure their campuses, ECU is the first school in the country to work on this type of network. Furthermore, ECU is currently ahead of all of UNC's sister institutions in testing a project of this sort. According to the Support Services Major, Frank Knight, ECU is representing the sister institutions in determining whether or not this project would be worth implementing into their systems.

According to DuVall and Powell, however, it is not solely the safety and security concerns that play a factor in the desire to see this project succeed. In addition to veering away, those individuals of the Greenville community that do not belong to the campus but continuously pose as threats, both see significant possibilities in the advances in technology the project could bring. Along with the ASSIST project there are four others that are in the process of testing or will shortly be underway. They are looking for components in each project that would best suit the needs of the campus and ideally would like to combine those components to create one system that would provide a better environment on the ECU campus overall.