AU2007200147A1 - Emergency alert system - Google Patents

Description

Regulation 3.2

AUSTRALIA

PATENTS ACT 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION FOR A STANDARD PATENT

ORIGINAL

Name of Applicant: SkunkWorks Australia Pty Ltd Actual Inventor: Bill Oborn Address for Service: MADDERNS, 1st Floor, 64 Hindmarsh Square, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia Invention title: EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM Details of Associated Provisional Application No: 2006900578 dated 7 February 2006 The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performing it known to us.

PatAU131 FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to alerting a target audience to an incident such as an emergency situation.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION In an emergency situation such as a bushfire, earthquake or cyclone, it is desirable to alert as many people as possible who may be affected by the situation. The ability to timely inform people of an impending or occurring situation can result in the saving of many lives.

Current methods of warning people range from people hearing about an incident and telephoning their friends who might be affected by the event, to more organised broadcasts on television and radio.

Such methods are by no means reliable. A person in potential danger may not be watching television or listening to the radio, or may not be at home to be otherwise alerted.

It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a method and system of more reliably alerting a target audience of an incident.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of alerting a target audience of the occurrence of an incident, the method comprising: receiving a report relating to the incident; determining at least one alert message associated with the reported incident; determining at least one target audience; and transmitting the selected at least one alert message to the determined target audience.

Preferably, the method further comprises filtering the report relating to the incident to exclude possible false reports.

O Preferably, the step of transmitting the at least one alert message comprises Stransmitting the at least one message via one or more of a plurality of transmission means.

Preferably, the one or more of the plurality of transmission means includes wireline telephone, cellular telephone, wireless audio communications, SMS, MMS, 0electronic mail and facsimile.

C 10 According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a system for

(N

alerting a target audience of the occurrence of an incident, the system comprising: means for receiving a report relating to the incident; means for determining at least one alert message associated with the reported incident; means for determining at least one target audience; and means for transmitting the determined at least one alert message to the determined target audience.

It should be appreciated that the present invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process, an apparatus, a system, or a computer readable medium such as a computer readable storage medium or a computer network wherein program instructions are sent over wireless, optical or electronic communication links. It should be noted that the order of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within the scope of the invention.

A detailed description of one or more preferred embodiments of the invention is provided below along with accompanying figures that illustrate by way of example the principles of the invention. While the invention is described in connection with such embodiments, it should be understood that the invention is not limited to any embodiment. On the contrary, the scope of the invention is limited only by the appended claims and the invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications and equivalents. For the purpose of example, numerous specific 3 details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. The present invention may be practiced according to the claims without some or all of these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technical material that is known in the technical fields related to the invention has not been described in detail so that the present invention is not unnecessarily obscured.

Throughout this specification and the claims that follow unless the context requires otherwise, the words 'comprise' and 'include' and variations such as 'comprising' and 'including' will be understood to imply the inclusion of a stated integer or group of integers but not the exclusion of any other integer or group of integers.

The reference to any prior art in this specification is not, and should not be taken as, an acknowledgment or any form of suggestion that such prior art forms part of the common general knowledge.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Fig. 1 depicts an exemplary system according to one aspect of the present invention showing various components of a system according to the present invention; Fig. 2 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the process of a person calling on a telephone to record a message with the intention of ultimately initiating an alert to be sent to a target audience; Fig. 3 depicts various incident reporting and alert provisioning using one or more data orientated methods; Fig. 4 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the sending of an alert by telephone to a target audience; Fig. 5 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the sending of an alert by email to a target audience; Fig. 6 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the sending of an alert by Short Message Service (SMS) to a target audience; Fig. 7 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the sending of an alert by a Multi-media Messaging Service (MMS) to a target audience; 4 Fig. 8 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the sending of an alert by facsimile to a target audience; Fig. 9 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the receipt of an alert by having a target audience using a telephone service to listen to an alert message; DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to one or more embodiments of the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying figures. The examples and embodiments are provided by way of explanation only and are not to be taken as limiting to the scope of the invention.

Furthermore, features illustrated or described as part of one embodiment may be used with one or more other embodiments to provide a further new combination.

The following description will be given with reference to a particular incident a bush fire however, it will be understood that the term "incident" can apply to any other form of incident such as any type of emergency/disaster (including a vehicle accident, rescue, fire, flood, an epidemic, a chemical spill, an earthquake, a meteor shower, a terrorist attack, a hold up or a tsunami), or to a non-emergency incident such as a traffic jam or public event.

The detection of an incident to alert one or more target audiences may be accomplished in a number of ways. In one embodiment, the detection may be made through one or more scientific instruments linked to a central authority. For example, seismographs may be used to provide some forewarning of an impending earthquake. Instruments are now being developed that may detect the generation and occurrence of a tsunami so as to provide an early warning of the arrival of the tsunami to nearby or surrounding inhabited land.

The detection of an incident by such means could then trigger an automatic notification of an incident then actuation of an alert to a selected target audience.

In another embodiment, the detection of an incident may be done manually. For

O

Oexample, a person may visually detect a fire and call or otherwise notify a central authority to alert them of the fire. This could then be used to trigger an alert being sent to a selected target audience.

Some of the various figures referred to herein depict the flow of the main functional _process associated with an embodiment of the invention. The Figures do not show the standard error handling processes, such as loop counts and repeat processes or re-sends used when no DTMF or audio or data is detected, and other functions C 10 used in telephony and data applications that anyone skilled in the art would be aware of and would implement in such a system as a matter of course.

Referring now to Fig. 1, there is shown an exemplary system according to one aspect of the present invention.

The emergency warning system 10 (including storage 100 and 110, filtering 21, queuing 22) receives notifications of incidents (20, 30, 40 and 50 are examples), which then processes the received information, and if appropriate, selects one or more target audiences and transmits via an appropriate method (60, 70 and 80) at least one alert to the selected target audience(s).

As previously described, incident information can be detected by a number of means. Automatic detection means 20 such as a seismograph may detect natural phenomena such as seismic waves that indicate an impending earthquake. Other automatic detection means and associated systems for analysing and prediction could include wind measuring devices, satellite sensing devices, tsunami detectors etc.

A person using one or a combination of telephony services 30 can provide a notification verbally. For example the plain old telephone system, mobile phone, VoIP service for audio input and 40 mobile telephony data services such as for example Short Message Services and Multi-media Message Services can be used. A

I

further form of providing information relating to an incident is via a computer device 50 wherein a personal computer is depicted. This may be by way of an email to the system 10, or through a website of the emergency warning system.

The system can accommodate calls from members of the public performing their civic duty who encounter a reportable incident. In other arrangements the system can be used by authorised persons to actually notify the occurrence of an incident, have the system generate one or messages and distribute it or them, or for the authorised person to generate a suitable message and for the system to distribute that message, or for the authorised person to determine to whom and how the alert message or messages of different types and transmission methods are to be distributed.

It is also possible for one or more people whether in a selected audience or not, to contact the command centre and be provided a selected audio message regarding the at least one alert.

A live agent (not shown but who is a human operator operating within the emergency warning system) may intervene into a notification at any time during the call and listen to the caller and/or converse with the caller and/or take control of the action continuing with the process of recording of and initiation of the process of distributing an alert.

Fig. 2 shows one embodiment of the flow of a system where a person calls on a telephone to record a message with intention of ultimately initiating an alert to be sent. The caller may dial a direct in-dial number, or a special services number such as a 1300, or 1800, or 190 numbers, or the call may be re-directed from another answering point or call transfer point. The number used can be dedicated to receiving calls from different types of caller. For example a number may be dedicated to receiving calls from members of the public while other numbers can be dedicated to receiving calls from authorised callers such as fire wardens in a country fire service who's call line identification is instantly checked and access to the system 10 is provided at a predetermined level, for example being able to

O

Oinstantly record a message and initiate a predetermined alert transmission on predetermined output channels.

Some implementations may require the user to enter a PIN. This PIN feature can be at any point in the call flow, although typically at or near the start of the call and this provides a further form of check that the person calling in is who the system expects them to be and this can hasten their access to relevant and predetermined resources and actions that the system can provide.

0 Referring to Fig. 2 a caller who in this example has used a telephone 200 to call a specific emergency alert call-in number is detected 202 and a Call Line Identifier function operates to provide the system 10 a unique identification of the telephone used by the caller. Outside services 204, 206 and 208 or in-house database/s can supply a variety of information about the telephone 200 phone and possibly the caller such as registered phone user, actual telephone number, location of the phone, wherein this information can be used later in the call processing to better identify the caller and check certain information against the information or data provided by the caller. For example if the caller were reporting a fire in a suburb that was not the same or near the actual location of the telephone then there would be reason for greater scrutiny of the caller.

The system 10 will answer the call 210 and depending on business rules it may block the call such as when the caller is a known pest hoax caller and may send signals or information to the caller/telephone 212 and that may end the call 214.

Otherwise, the process of checking the file continues 216 and 218 followed or concurrently with the playing of a greeting message 219.

As mentioned previously a live agent can intervene 220 at any time to assist the caller.

One method of inputting information is by way of allowing the caller to provide Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (telephony) DTMF tones that can communicate numbers and/or letters into the system, either as a way of commanding the system to for example receive instructions from an authorised caller to issue a specific alert, or to navigate the introductory message routes to guide the caller when they are providing alert information by way of an audio message. The recorded message will preferably include emergency/disaster type, location and severity, etc as 0 prompted by the system to the caller.

C 10 Steps 222 to 244 are but one example of ways of recording and confirming an incoming message from a telephone 200.

A filtering mechanism 21 that can be implemented in software within the emergency warning system 10 collects information about the emergency being reported and applies rules on how to deal with it. This mechanism is used for a wide range of functions such as helping to define which area the emergency is being reported from, helping to determine if the call is a hoax or not, whether the caller is known as a nuisance caller, or is a registered or authorised caller or is a disabled person and so on.

The source of the sender may be identified by several means including the following: Source Comments CLI Calling line identifier. This is the phone number the caller is calling from. This number can be matched with other data to see if this number is know to the system, and/or the geolocation of the caller by comparing the number against other data such as exchanges zones, area codes, state codes and others.

MOLI Mobile origination location information. Similar to the CLI in Geo-location that it can provide information on the location of the caller.

GPS and other sources of data can provide information on the location of the caller. GPS for example is envisaged as being included in many new types of mobile phones.

IP address Similar to the CLI in that the caller from a VoIP service has an IP address which can be matched with other data.

People accessing the system from other internet and data network type services such as via a web site or remote device will also have an address such as an IP address which can be matched with other data.

PIN When calling by phone the system may ask the caller to enter a PIN which is to be validated to allow the caller to proceed.

This is used in situations such as brigade captains wanting to record information to be broadcast only to his group, or a shire (council) wanting to record information to be broadcast to people about a harvest ban, and other uses.

Email address The service can be configured to receive emails, and thus also match the email address and other identifying information such as the sending mail server or domain name.

Web access login A login authentication may include a Username and Password to be entered and validated.

Web access public The system can source information from public websites such as weather, traffic, police, fire and others.

The system can receive information via X.25 and thus match the sending identifier/s relevant to such systems.

The source of the sender may be used to carry out several filtering functions including the following: Source Not allow list Allow list Other Comments List of known sources that the system knows to not allow access from. The resultant function may be to unconditionally block access, or it may be to provide limited access, or special access, or it may give rise to alarms to be triggered. A trigger may initiate a record function to help trace hoax or nuisance callers. Limited or special access may trigger a live operator to intervene or monitor the communication.

List of known sources. The system may be configured to allow certain users or groups to have full or partial access to the system.

A source that is not known to be in the 'allow' and 'not allow' lists may be treated differently. For example, these access users may be given limited or special access, which may trigger a live operator to intervene or monitor the communication.

Geo-location information may be used to match the caller with the emergency. For example a caller from Hobart who is reporting a bushfire in Perth is likely to be a nuisance caller and this may trigger a function such as an operator to intervene the call, or to restrict access levels of the system, or to play certain warning messages to the caller.

Various combinations of allow lists, not allow lists, geolocation information, and other sources of information may be used together to form a profile of the person or service accessing the system, which may trigger certain functions to happen such as operator intervention or certain warning messages etc.

Geo-location Various Upon receiving notification including information regarding an incident, the system 10 processes this information to determine an appropriate action. One aspect of the processing of this information is to verify the validity of the 11 information. One problem with relying on warnings from the public is that of false calls, where a person may falsely report an incident, either deliberately (hoax) or by accident, or which may be otherwise misleading. It is desirable to be able to filter the information to reduce the risk of taking actions based on false or misleading information.

A number of methods are proposed to provide a level of filtering of the incoming information. As the information is received by the system 10, the information is put through filter 21. Filter 21 may consist of one or more means of filtering the incoming information. One such means is to only allow information from registered sources, such as specific telephone numbers (by comparing the caller line identification (CLI)) or IP addresses if the information is received via the Internet from a computer Other methods of filtering include only accepting sources of information initiated from a geographical area where the incident is reported to be occurring. This can be determined from comparing the CLI with a database of recorded CLIs correlated with geographical location, or in the case of a wireless or cellular phone, using phone location techniques. A report of an incident occurring in a town different from where the call originated has a higher likelihood of being invalid than a call originating in the same town for example.

Other methods of filtering include barring information received from known hoax callers that are listed on either: an internal or an external database 100, again using CLI or similar methods.

Another method of filtering includes the actual analysis of the content of the information associated with the notification. For example speech and/or text detection technology may be used to detect area names and location details in the message. If the report areas do not appear on relevant databases, the message may be considered to be a hoax and after possible further investigation by the system or a human operator supporting the suspicion of a hoax, will not result in an incident alert message being sent.

The emergency warning system 10 can also include codes that are associated with a notification incident including variables such as location, level of severity, type of incident (eg bush fire, car accident, chemical spill etc), and/or whether this is the first report received for this incident or whether it is a repeat report for the same incident. These codes can then be interpreted by the system to assist with analysis of the situation. Codes can be inserted manually or automatically by the system.

For example if a notification is received on a dedicated bushfire report facility then it is likely that this report concerns bushfires and the system may add the code for bushfire incident before passing on with in the system for further processing of analysis.

The above methods may be used alone, in combination, and/or in conjunction with other information databases such as the scientific instruments 40 connected to the system.

These methods may be carried out automatically or by human, manual means, or a combination of both.

A facility may also be provided to report to the relevant authorities, any calls or otherwise providing information that has been determined to be false. The report can include details such as the caller's CLI. This information could also be stored on the system 10 databases for future internal reference.

Fig. 3 depicts various incident reporting and alert provision methods using data orientated methods such as data over SMS, MMS, the Internet and recorded voice using a variety of suitable data protocols such as for example, TCP/IP, IP, X.25 a CCITT packet switching protocol and various others at the appropriate ISO level.

Manual means may also be used, and can include a person 30 detecting an incident (such as a fire) and telephoning the incident into the system 10. Alternatively, or in addition, a person 30 can notify the system 10 of the incident via other means including by SMS, MMS by way of transmitting a picture and accompanying text of the incident or by any other suitable means that is accommodated by the system A person 30 can also leave a recorded message at the system 10 for alerted target members to listen for more details regarding the incident.

The system can be implemented at a central level system and configured to meet most conceivable emergencies and disasters or configured to meet a selected variety of such incidents that are specific to the area in which the system is to operate. So it is possible to have a mini-system located in a country region that does not have all the features described herein that for example deals only with fire and vehicle accidents which relays other incident reporting to a central system while copying the incident report and action associated with local incident to the central system.

Once an incident report has been deemed to be valid, the system 10 will determine one or more appropriate target audiences to send an appropriate alert message.

SEND ALERT BY TELEPHONE Fig. 4 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the sending of an alert by telephone to a target audience.

Having a list of targets to call 400 a Queue Mechanism 402 (shown as 22 in Fig. 1) identifies the available telephone channels and creates a sub-list 404 or batch of numbers to dial. The dialling of target phone numbers occurs according to the list 406. Status of the target telephone calling event such as answered, engaged or no answer, and delivering network congestion signals, feed information 410 back into the queue mechanism to take into account the status of the target telephone and potential bottlenecks in certain telephone exchange areas or districts or states or networks.

O The Queue Mechanism 402 regularly re-calculates how many remaining target phone numbers are possible to dial in the next batch and how many the system has capacity to dial and possible remote end congestion.

('1 Once a call is answered the alert message 412 is played a configurable number of times to the target person 414.

SEND ALERT BY EMAIL Fig. 5 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the sending of an alert by email to a target audience.

The Queue Mechanism 502 identifies the available system resources and Internet access capacity, and creates a sub-list or batch of emails to send 504. The Queue Mechanism 502 regularly re-calculates available resources and capacity and how many remaining e-mails are sent in the next batch and so on.

A text message 506 can be appended to the e-mail the content can include the area affected, the nature of the alert, and other information as required. Additionally or alternatively the e-mail may contain an audio file 508. The predetermined e-mail is created 510 and used by the e-mail server 512. A mechanism 514 is provided to keep track of e-mails that are not received or if acknowledgement is required whether it is received or not. The e-mail server delivers the e-mails to the Internet 516.

SEND ALERT BY SMS Fig. 6 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the sending of an alert by Short Message Service (SMS) to a target audience.

The Queue Mechanism 602 identifies the available system resources and access capacity to the SMS gateway and creates a sub-list or batch of SMS' to send 604.

The Queue Mechanism 602 regularly re-calculates available resources and capacity and how many remaining SMS' are sent in the next batch and so on.

A text message 606 is available as the SMS the content that can include the area affected, the nature of the alert, and other information as required. The content of the text can be created by the caller, or made available for choosing by the caller, created by the system based on information provided by the caller, or by other means.

The SMS message is created 608 and delivered or made available to an SMS gateway 610 and on supplied to a mobile network 612.

Upon receipt 614 of the SMS by the target person they can dial a number contained within the SMS to receive the same or additional alert information.

SEND ALERT BY MMS Fig. 7 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the sending of an alert by a Multi-media Messaging Service (MMS) to a target audience.

The Queue Mechanism 702 identifies the available system resources and access capacity to the MMS gateway and creates a sub-list or batch of MMS' to send 704.

The Queue Mechanism 702 regularly re-calculates available resources and capacity and how many remaining MMS' are sent in the next batch and so on.

A text message 706 is available as the MMS the content that can include the area affected, the nature of the alert, and other information as required. The content of the text can be created by the caller, or made available for choosing by the caller, created by the system based on information provided by the caller, or by other means.

An audio file may be attached that is typically the same audio file used in the telephone dial out method 706. Graphic file may be a picture of the Alert and of great interest to law enforcement and emergency services agencies. For example the image may show details about an emergency to help agencies understand the

O

0 severity and other information about the emergency; another example is it may

(N

contain an image of suspect arsonist or felon 707.

The MMS message is created 708 and delivered or made available to an SMS gateway 710 and on supplied to a mobile network 712.

SEND ALERT BY FAX Fig. 8 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the sending of an alert by facsimile to a target audience.

The Queue Mechanism 802 identifies the available telephone channels to send fax transmissions and creates a sub-list or batch of numbers to dial 806. Status of the target telephone calling event such as answered, engaged or no answer, and delivering network congestion signals, feed information 410 back into the queue mechanism to take into account the status of the target telephone and potential bottlenecks in certain telephone exchange areas or districts or states or networks.

The Queue Mechanism 802 regularly re-calculates available system resources and how many remaining target fax numbers are possible to dial and how many the system has capacity to dial in the next batch and possible remote end congestion.

The text 808 for the alert may be standard providing a number for the recipient to call or include alert information as compiled by the system with which the system prepares the facsimile message 810 and then dials the target facsimile numbers 812.

Once a call is answered the alert message 810 is sent 812 to the target persons preadvised facsimile machine telephone number 814 and the facsimile is sent 816 to that particular target and then the call is ended 818. If the target's facsimile number is busy or engaged the call is re-entered into the queue mechanism 802 or at any suitable step in the process.

TARGET PERSONS/AUDIENCE 0 OA number of methods may be used to define a target audience to be alerted to the occurrence of a specific event, and may be dependant upon the nature of the incident.

In one aspect, the target audience may be defined by a group of people who have opted in and/or subscribed to a particular service to be alerted to a specific incident that may affect them. In another aspect, the target audience may be defined by a geographical location and selected according to their addresses on an electoral role, 0 10 a telephone directory, post code, township, suburb, proximity to a telephone area or mobile phone cell or similar, or other geographical listing. In another aspect, the target audience may be defined by a medical condition, such as asthma, and who may be alerted to the presence of an allergen or excessive smoke in the atmosphere in a particular area or on a particular day.

Information relating to environmental conditions for example could be obtained from external databases 110 such as the Bureau of Meteorology. For example, the incident may be a threatening storm over an area of ocean, which is detected and reported by appropriate scientific instruments associated with the Bureau of Meteorology. Another input instrument could be a satellite used in a Global Positioning System (GPS), and which detects that a boat is currently in the path of the imminent storm. The system 10 could then send a message to the radio receiver of the boat warning the operators of the potential danger.

In a further aspect of the invention, the target audience may have a sub-audience defined therein, such as those suffering from asthma, but only in a particular geographical area.

It will also be appreciated that the target audience for a particular incident could be a single person. This may occur for example when single person is living in an isolated area on his own, where a fire threatens the area.

Once one or more target audiences have been selected, the system 10 determines an Cappropriate message to transmit to the selected target audiences(s). This message can be determined manually by a human operator depending upon the nature of M the incident that is reported, perhaps in conjunction with preset guidelines, or may be a fully automated message determined from a database of messages associated with a particular incident. This could be in the form of a lookup table.

It is also conceivable that different messages are sent to different sub-audiences of the target audience(s) selected. This may be because of different geographical 510 locations or different requirements of a particular sub-audience.

It is also possible to send an abbreviated message such as the notification of a warning, and a telephone or other number to call to listen to a more detailed message relating to the incident reported.

It is also possible to send several messages over a period of time, providing updates on the situation and providing information on what actions are being taken.

Examples of the form of messages that may be sent include: 'There is a bushfire reported on the Eastern side of the township of Smithton and is moving in a southerly direction toward Redgum Creek. The Fire Authority is on its way to the incident".

"The bushfire in Smithton area is now under control. The Fire Authority is remaining on site in case of flare-up".

"This is Joe Brown here, lightening has struck the big tree at the end of Mudflat Lane, I am getting the fire truck now".

"A bushfire has been reported in your area, please call 1300 550 309 for more details".

O "Extreme danger the fire in your area has escalated to the highest level, implement your disaster plan now".

Once the appropriate message has been selected, the system 10 then determines the means by which the message(s) are sent. Possible forms of transmission include an audio message, which can be sent via a land line phone (perhaps using VoIP technologies), wireless phones including satellite phones or cellular phones, or even as an audio file attached to an e-mail, via the internet.

QUEUING MECHANISM The queuing mechanism manages the sending of alerts to maximise the performance of the system and available delivery mechanisms, and to provide the fastest and most efficient means of delivering the alerts and information.

The queuing mechanism considers two components for sending alerts: 1. The Central List of targets to be alerted, and 2. The types of alerts to be sent, such as phone call, email, SMS, etc. In the case of phone calls the system can treat wire-line phones, mobile phones, VoIP phones differently, for example an alert call to mobile phone can have a longer call set-up time than to a wire-line phone hence this is taken into account when sending alerts.

The queuing mechanism calculates and then regularly re-calculates the available capacity to sends alerts. These considerations include: 1. Total available capacity in the system and the delivery network/s at that time and/or predicted at the time the alerts will commence and/or occur, 2. What resources are already committed to or in use by other activities which may or may not be other alerts, 3. Calculation of the capacity available to send an alert event. The calculation mechanism is configurable, for example it may be configured to all 100% of all the available capacity or less than this so as to allow capacity for other functions.

4. Other environmental or emergency services considerations Available capacity may be impacted by: 1. The number of phone lines available to the system, and/or 2. CPU in the system, and/or 3. Internet bandwidth for sending of emails or data, and/or 4. Capacity of SMS and MMS gateways, and/or 5. Processing power of mail servers, or congestion of delivering and/or 6. Performance of upstream networks, for example a target area may have telephone network congestion due to high number of other phone calls occurring in that area at that time, or a bushfire or terrorism event has diminished the capacity of the network or mobile phone towers etc, and/or 7. Other environmental or emergency related considerations.

Based on the above and other considerations the queuing mechanism prepares a sub-list of targets to send alerts to. This list is regularly re-calculated and adjusted.

The frequency of the re-calculation is typically 30 seconds, however this figure is configurable.

Feedback from the alerts that the alert has been sent or the alert task is fed back into the queuing mechanism as follows: 1. Successful alerts are removed from the list so that they are not re-sent in the same event, and 2. Alerts that experience upstream congestion are re-sent on a continuous basis.

This is configurable so that the re-sending may be limited to a set number of times. Alerts to congested services or congested geographical locations may be given a priority as to when the re-sends are next attempted, and 3. Phone alerts that experience 'busy' signal are retried 4 times (configurable) and may be given a priority as to when the re-sends are next attempted, and 4. Phone alerts that experience 'no answer' signal are retried 4 times

O

O(configurable) and may be given a priority as to when the re-sends are next attempted, and Email alerts that experience a failure or error messages are removed from the list and the information is given to the operator of the service to decide on a course of action.

6. Special targets that do not receive their alerts within a configurable amount of time or number of re-tries may be reported as a special case. For example people with disabilities or aged people that do not receive their alert/s can trigger an event such as sending special information to emergency services agencies or nursing agencies or other third party nominated targets.

The queuing mechanism has full reporting including data and graphical representation to enable operators of the service to have full knowledge of the status of alerts at any time during or after an event.

The system 10 includes a message queue 22 that enables large numbers of messages to be sent out in the shortest possible time. The queue 22 forms part of a general communications interface (for example an Ethernet connection), allowing connection to multiple communication networks as referred to above.

A further option is to transmit the message(s) in a video or graphic form, by for example MMS technologies.

The means by which a target audience receives the message may also be determined in a number of ways. For example, a particular target audience may be known to only have access via wireless means, and so the message may be sent only via wireless communications (eg two way radio, trunked radio, UHF radio, HF radio SMS, MMS, cell phone). In other forms, a particular person within the selected target audience(s) may have pre-registered a preferred means of communication. In another form, a particular target audience may be deaf and therefore only able to receive text or graphical information.

22 O The message may also be sent to a target audience by more than one of these means.

In some instances, the system 10 can monitor the receipt of a message transmission.

If a receipt indication of the message is not received within a given period of time, the message can be resent on the same or other means. If the message continues to fail to be received, the message can be then sent by another means, if required the appropriate message receipt acknowledgements are received.

C In a further aspect, system 10 may detect that one means of transmitting the information has become congested, and may then divert the transmission means to an alternative means that is not so congested.

In another aspect, if a message targeted to an individual who has a particular disability is not indicated as having been received, the system 10 can then alert appropriate emergency services who can then attend to that individual as appropriate. This individual could be a part of the determined target audience, or could in fact be the sole determined target audience.

Following is a description of the mechanics of the transmission process upon receiving a report of an incident, determining that the report is a valid one and determining the target audience.

Firstly, all of the target wire-line phone numbers, cellular phone numbers, email address, SMS phone numbers, email addresses etc that need to receive alerts for the reported incident and as defined by the determined target group are identified.

These are then placed in a queue for immediate action.

As many alerts as possible are attempted within the throttling limits of the dispatching mechanism. The dispatching mechanism controls the delivery method such that SMSs are routed to the SMS route, wire-line phone calls routed to the telephone network route and so on.

The throttling mechanism controls how many of what type of messages are sent to the dispatcher at any one time. The throttle limits are configurable for each type of message. For example it can be set to send 500 simultaneous phone calls, 700 emails, 350 SMSs etc, where each value is configurable. Throttling ensures that sufficient capacity remains to allow the receipt of new inbound alert reports. It also provides maximum throughput and minimum idle time for the system to work within the available alert delivery limits the available number of phone lines, size of Internet connection for email message throughput and capacity of SMS delivery route).

Every 20 secs (this is a configurable variable) the system checks for unsent messages, and then processes them within the limits of the throttling mechanism. A default may be set to send the oldest alert messages first.

Incidents can be prioritised such that an incident for one target group may have higher priority of alert delivery resources over another incident or group. This can be used for example where a life threatening alert needs to be sent out at a higher priority over another alert which is related to a simple and non-urgent general information update.

In a further aspect of the present invention, subscribers to the system may join the system to have their names added to one or more target audience lists. This involves accessing a website on a computer terminal 50 and entering the required details, or sending in a form by post or facsimile, providing details such as personal identification details, personal circumstance details (such as any medical or other disabilities), preferred form of message communication name and location of the area, identity of the nearby incident authority (eg Fire Authority), name and geographic location of the property, map references (eg Google Maps coordinate), and incident authority location details (eg RAPID number issued by a Fire 24 Authority that provides the authority with a meaningful geographic coordinate of that property).

Subscription may also include collection of billing address and method of payment.

Subscribing to the system could incur a subscription fee, which may assist in funding the scheme. Other sources of support funds could include commercial or corporate sponsors, and government or other grants.

DIAL IN BY TELEPHONE TO LISTEN TO A MESSAGE Fig. 9 depicts a flow diagram of steps associated with the receipt of an alert by having a target audience using a telephone service to listen to an alert message.

A call to receive an alert may originate from any service type such as wire-line phone, mobile phone, or VolP service. The caller may dial 900 a predetermined number such as a direct in-dial number, or a special services number such as a 1300, or 1800, or 190 numbers, or the call may be re-directed from another answering point or call transfer point.

Caller accesses the system 10 and listens to a message about the emergency. A ring detector 910 receives the call and using Caller Line identification if available or other means determines the source of the call. The phone identity can be checked against local and external databases 920 and 930 as well as against a database of service type 940. The call is answered 950 or is sent a busy tone 960 as required due to the capacity of the system Some implementations may require the user to enter a PIN 970 which can be checked 980. This PIN feature can be at any point in the call flow, although typically at or near the start of the call.

The message 992 may cycle several times 990 to give the caller every chance of hearing the message, particularly if they are calling from noisy environment or from a mobile in poor coverage area. The call to that particular target person is ended 994 either once the caller ends it or the required times of repetition have occurred.

The form of an implementation of any particular embodiment of the invention described or taught above may include the supply of software, software and hardware, software on a storage medium, separate system elements containing software and hardware and a variety of variations that conform to the needs of the operator of the alert system that embody one or more of the functions or steps of the invention.

It will be understood that the term "comprise" and any of its derivatives (eg.

comprises, comprising) as used in this specification is to be taken to be inclusive of features to which it refers, and is not meant to exclude the presence of any additional features unless otherwise stated or implied.

Claims (9)

1. A method of alerting a target audience of the occurrence of an incident, the method comprising: receiving a report relating to the incident; determining at least one alert message associated with the reported incident; determining at least one target audience; and transmitting the determined at least one alert message to the determined target audience.

2. A method according to claim 1 further comprising filtering the report relating to the incident to exclude possible false reports.

3. A method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the step of transmitting the at least one alert message comprises transmitting the at least one message via one or more of a plurality of transmission means.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein the one or more of the plurality of transmission means includes wireless audio communications, wire-line telephone, cellular telephone SMS, MMS, electronic mail and facsimile.

A system for alerting a target audience of the occurrence of an incident, the system comprising: means for receiving a report relating to the incident; means for determining at least one alert message associated with the reported incident; means for determining at least one target audience; and means transmitting the determined at least one alert message to the determined target audience.

6. A system according to claim 5 further comprising means for filtering the report relating to the incident to exclude possible false reports. 27

7. A system according to claim 5 or 6 further comprising means for transmitting the at least one alert message via a plurality of one or more transmission means.

8. A system according to claim 7 wherein the one or more of the plurality of transmission means includes wireless audio communications, wire-line telephone, cellular telephone SMS, MMS, electronic mail and facsimile.

9. A method substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying figures. A system substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying figures.