Mobile Tornado’s UK reseller partner Storm have entered into an exciting new partnership with specialist intelligence-led security partners, Amulet. Amulet combine industry-leading technology with highly trained personnel to provide security that helps organisations operate smoothly and with minimum disruption.
Amulet work with many of the UK’s most prestigious train operating companies. Their dedicated rail teams have invaluable experience and knowledge of the rail sector and offer rail-specific solutions.
Challenge
Amulet work with Northern Trains, a UK train operating company, to provide Transportation Security (TSO) Officers for their stations. TSOs are responsible for the safety and protection of Northern Trains’ passengers and staff. Officers are employed to resolve anti-social behaviour and deter criminal activity through high visibility patrols to maintain safety and security of this key transport network.
The Northern TSO team had been experiencing challenges with the quality of network coverage. In areas of lower coverage, their existing PTT solution was dropping calls regularly, often at important moments. Security relies on fast, reliable communication so these challenges needed to be addressed urgently.
Solution
Northern Trains quickly identified that Storm’s push-to-talk over cellular (PTToC also known as PTT) application, powered by Mobile Tornado, could address both the coverage and switching issues their TSOs were experiencing. Unlike legacy two-way radio systems, PTToC technology uses cellular networks, enabling reliable coverage, regardless of location.
Mobile Tornado’s solution also provides best-in-class, seamless switching between 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G mobile and WiFi networks. In addition to improving communications, their PTT solution also provides a suite of lone worker capabilities, including emergency alerts, activity monitoring, impact detection and keep-alive check-in. These capabilities will be deployed in phase two and will further enhance the safety of both the TSOs and Northern Trains’ passengers.
The PTT application has been introduced to TSOs across the full Northern region and is deployed on to Inrico S380 devices. During deployment, Storm worked with Peter Jones, creators of the industry leading Klick Fast System, to deliver a dedicated system for the devices.
In the next phase Amulet will roll out Mobile Tornado’s world-class dispatch console to the Northern control room, located in Manchester Victoria station, and onto supervisors’ laptops. This will enable instant communication with the TSOs as well as live location tracking, allowing constant monitoring of incidents. In the event of an incident, the dispatch console provides full alerting and management of all communications across the TSO network to enable a quick and effective response. It also provides retrospective reporting to either British transport police or Northern Trains themselves.
Outcomes
Mobile Tornado’s PTToC solution has addressed the coverage and switching issues Northern Trains’ TSOs had been facing and has improved communication, increased productivity and enhanced worker safety. By providing accuracy of TSO locations and increasing the emergency alerting functionality, the management of emergency situations and incidents has improved dramatically.
The significance of push-to-talk over cellular is evident across the rail sector. It can help increase business efficiencies and effectiveness by improving communication and providing added features like lone worker.
Saul Ashworth, account manager for Northern Trains at Amulet explained the success of the Storm project: “We are delighted that our partnership with Northern Trains and Storm has proved so successful. Keeping our TSOs safe is our number one priority and the range of lone worker features in the Storm solution enables us to keep track of them and respond quickly in the event of an emergency. Feedback from the TSOs has been overwhelmingly positive. Great work Storm!”
