When the House of Public Safety in Bergen, Norway, implemented 24/7 operations, it became immediately clear that they would need better communications amongst the different teams and enhanced continuous logging and management for critical events in the municipality. But, it also became apparent that they would need an intuitive and easy-to-use software solution to help them prepare for and manage critical events. The teams were able to find all of this in the RAYVN solution.

Rune Bratland is State Director of House of Public Safety. He heads up the emergency response teams for the Bergen municipality and is responsible for ensuring emergency preparedness in accordance with laws and regulations across all the various security agencies and units within the municipality. This involves creating and maintaining an emergency plan that is in line with Bergen municipality's overall plan. At a tactical level, it also means focusing on carrying out exercises or drills with the team and selecting and using the best critical event management solutions.

RAYVN has spoken to Bratland about why they chose RAYVN and their experiences with the RAYVN solution so far.

How does the House of Public Safety use the RAYVN solution?

When we started 24/7 operations in 2021, it was essential for us to have a system suitable for continuous logging, for example, one week at a time. At the same time, as municipal crisis management, we need a crisis management solution that is easy for everyone to understand and use.

We have eight employees who all use RAYVN on a rotating basis. The functionality in the RAYVN solution contributes to the most consistent and comprehensive logging possible.

What are the main reasons for choosing RAYVN?

Any system we deployed had to be easy to use and have simple logging. It is essential that the various roles in municipal crisis management can use a common solution to receive notifications, share information, and assign and manage tasks. The RAYVN solution had these elements and suited us well. Moreover, it had to be easy to follow a thread and distinguish between an event in the log and an event with its own log. Finally, it is an added benefit that we were to influence the functional development of the solution with the RAYVN technical team.

Minimizing user training and ease of use

Can you share some experiences about how implementation and training have been organized and what feedback you get from the various teams?

Sure, for us, there are two main training courses:

1. The first training is aimed at the on-duty emergency coordinator, which includes training in the administration of the tool and setting up the various security functions.
2. The second course involves training security personnel who will join municipal crisis management. In Bergen, on-call personnel and teams will respond to critical events within the municipality in a fixed time frame. These teams are also given annual training in the use of the RAYVN solution.

Everyone receives simple user training where we emphasize that they should be able to respond to an event by starting a log, responding to notifications, and managing their own tasks. The time required to train users is minimal. We've found that one hour is enough training time for the municipal crisis management team to start actively using the solution.

Collaborating with other teams within seconds and minutes

Can you describe how you handled the episode where a gas tank was leaking at Bergen Harbour?

Since we had established a cooperation agreement in the RAYVN solution with Bergen Harbour, we can cooperate on this critical event within seconds and minutes. Within RAYVN, the Port of Bergen invited us to join their critical response. We then received an immediate response from the Port of Bergen's operational team, and we could exchange and share information and updates across the team.

Previously, without a solution like RAYVN, teams were forced to call one another, explain on the phone and then agree to cooperate. With RAYVN, we could share our incident log with the Bergen Harbour team. This offers an entirely different dimension of cooperation and understanding to both teams. The fact that the Port of Bergen immediately gets an update on our response tactics and measures to be implemented means they have a completely different basis for decision-making for their own handling capabilities.

Ease of use and the collaboration module is crucial

Can you highlight some of the most valuable features of the RAYVN solution?

The cooperation module is very useful. Practically speaking, if you have already established a collaboration with a partner or stakeholder in reality, i.e., you already have a relationship, then we have experienced that it is easier to achieve collaboration within the RAYVN solution. Ease of use for low-threshold users, such as municipal crisis management, is also crucial for us.

In an ongoing event, do you take advantage of the possibility of video meetings in the RAYVN solution?

Video meetings are most useful in the run-up to an event. Until now, video meetings have been used when the on-duty emergency coordinator needs to discuss issues with his manager and me. Our experience is that it is useful to do so in the RAYVN solution before any further notification or recommendations are given to the municipality's management.

How did you communicate with the various response teams before implementing the RAYVN solution?

By telephone, e-mail, and in some cases, summons to a physical meeting. We still have physical meetings, regardless of tools, if necessary.

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