RapidDeploy announces Lightning mobile app, statewide deal in Kansas

RapidDeploy yesterday announced Lightning, the company’s mobile application that is designed to support providing first responders in the field with 911 call information and supplementary data—including video feeds—automatically, beginning with a multiyear, statewide contract with the Kansas 911 Coordinating Council.

RapidDeploy CEO Steve Raucher said he is appreciative of the Kansas 911 community—which already is using the company’s Radius Mapping offering on a statewide basis–being so proactive in its willingness to help develop and now make the Lightning app available to the state’s 25,000 first responders on their smart devices.

“While we were formulating the idea for the app and were working with some very close partners of ours, the state of Kansas and its 911 board wanted to be the first state to roll this out statewide,” Raucher said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

Michele Abbott, the KS911 Coordinating Council’s communication and training coordinator, said that the council’s plans to pay the cost of first responders utilizing the Lightning mobile app through 2030, so it can be available to any agency in the state, regardless of size or budget.

“Finances will not be a barrier [to Lightning adoption],” Abbott said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications.

Lightning will be tested by the KS911 Coordinating Council during the fourth quarter this year, and pilot programs could begin during the first quarter of 2024, Abbott said. If Lightning works well during those evaluations, the RapidDeploy mobile app could be generally available to Kansas first responders later in 2024, she said.

Abbott said she believes the decision to make Lightning available in Kansas is just the latest of many efforts undertaken in the state to transition to a next-gen 911 architecture, including an agreement to contract with AT&T for the development of a statewide ESInet.

“We feel like we’re doing the right things in the right order, and this is just the very next common-sense addition to our program,” Abbott said.

Raucher said RapidDeploy officials made the decision to develop the cloud-based Lightning mobile application in the wake of the tragic May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Raucher said he asked members of the RapidDeploy team whether the company’s flagship Radius Mapping product—the call-taking mapping platform already used by more than 1,500 911 call centers—would have made a difference in the outcome, if it was utilized during the Uvalde incident.

“The answer was that there would have been some improvements to the outcome, but it wouldn’t have changed the game,” Raucher said.

Raucher noted that the information in the Radius platform—from sensor-based data to video feeds—historically has been limited to personnel in the 911 center, as opposed to being available to those responding to the incident in the field.

“What does this mean when we have all of this data in the PSAP, and we have the telecommunicators—who already are overburdened with decision-making—having to be the arbitrator of what data should go where?” Raucher said. “As we were processing this information and challenging ourselves about how we could fix the workflow for first responders—or at least augment it, to make it more powerful—the idea started forming for creating our mobile app called Lightning.

“This is the power of the cloud hitting us at street level. So, we chose the name very thoughtfully for this product.”

Raucher said the Lightning app is designed with the idea of “basically putting the power of Radius in the hands of the first responder,” so users need to be affiliated with agencies that utilize the Radius platform. First responders having access to such relevant information while in the field could have significant implications on public-safety operations, he said.

“Our app will inform first responders—depending on their discipline—by alerting them when a call for service is nearby, and it’s not dependent on CAD,” Raucher said. “Depending on the configuration, the first responder could see a 911 call drop within their proximity and be alerted.

“When it’s a telematics call like OnStar, the first responder on the scene will see the cut plans [for a Jaw of Life rescue] for that vehicle. It is the number-one issue with vehicles today that the fire service is hesitant to use the Jaws of Life for extrications, because it is almost impossible to get all of the vehicle cut plans in the hands of the first responder and disable the vehicle’s electrical circuits. We’ve been working closely with OnStar and other partners to bring that data directly into the hands of the first responder automatically.”

Raucher repeatedly emphasized that the Lightning is designed to augment existing solutions in the first-response communications arena, but he acknowledged that the new RapidDeploy mobile application potentially could alter the manner in which some of the existing tools are utilized in the future.

“It’s not for every PSAP or every responding agency—and it’s not for every discipline—but the tools are there to automatically allow a first responder to attach themselves for a call for service … and see all of the relevant data for that call for service,” Raucher said.

In addition to the incident information sent from a 911 center or command post to the first responder, Lightning supports the transmission of information from the first responder to a command—perhaps most significantly, the location of the first responder at an incident scene, according to Raucher

“We plan to use the device’s location itself, which means we’re also tracking first responders in buildings,” he said. “That means we’re speaking about officer safety and being able to track them in … fine-grained detail. So, the comms center will certainly not be blind to the movements or the operations of the first responder.

“And we’re not just talking about location on an XY axis; we’re talking about location on a Z axis, too.”

Such location information would represent a significant change for many jurisdictions, Raucher said.

“In Kansas today, 60% of responding agencies have no location tracking of their first responders, Raucher said. “That gets fixed in one fell swoop [with the statewide availability of Lighting]. This is what is making me so excited. I think we’re on the cusp of changing the way business will be done in America in 911.”

Indeed, these location-based features that can improve officer safety were a key reason that the Kansas 911 board members voted unanimously to purchase the Lighting application and make it available to all first responders in the state, according to Abbott. Having the device-location information—typically reflective of the responders’ location—or the last known location of the device displayed on a map were key to the support, she said.

“Those two alone made it an easy decision for Kansas, let alone all of the other next-gen features and functions that we’ve always enjoyed in the 911 center now being able to make available to the first responder,” Abbott said, citing the capability to share schematic and telematic information with first responder as just two of many examples.

Underpinning these higher-level functionalities is RapidDeploy’s ability to meet public-safety standards for reliability, security and performance, according to Abbott.

“The other thing is knowing that the partnership allows for this integration into the app and has all of the security tools that we need,” she said. “Because a system that meets the five 9’s, if you would, is important. It’s important that all of the features that they bring to the table meet our minimum specs. That’s for performance—real-time and uptime—cybersecurity and data security.”