A complete communication framework for public alert: the Alert4All approach

Abstract

Public alert systems can significantly contribute to reduce injuries and losses to life and property from existing hazards. However, communications strategies and methods applied in public alerting need to match the communications habits and needs of the population at risk to achieve its goal: that citizens receive, understand and trust the alert message to implement a suitable protective action. This is indeed a challenge when Europe as a whole is addressed. On the one hand, the migration movements within Europe are significant, creating a challenging socio-demographic landscape when it comes to communication. On the other hand, each Member State follows a completely independent (and often different) strategy and applies different technologies or approaches. In this context, the Alert4All has the vision to achieve a harmonized public alerting approach in European Member States, matching the communications needs and habits of the real beneficiaries: the citizens at risk. The Alert4All project proposes a complete communication framework to reach this vision composed of the following elements: • a methodology to easily formulate alert messages - derived from a best practice pre-study - that can be applied to harmonizing public alerting methodologies in Europe; • a guided user interface that fosters the use of best practices; • a multi-channel approach based to match the communications habits of the people at risk, increase the alert penetration and exploit the complementary capabilities of different channels; • a communications transport protocol that matches the capacity capabilities of each communication channel to deliver the alert message; • user device applications to achieve multi-modal delivery of alerts, addressing multi-language issues and people with special needs. The paper describes the complete Alert4All communications framework in detail. In terms of communications technologies, emphasis will be given to the use of future digital TV technology (HbbTV) and navigation receivers to deliver alert messages.