Emergency Messaging
Integral part of disaster preparedness plans and safety notification / emergency messaging network
Educational and governmental institutions, transportation services and corporations alike should consider digital signage as an integral part of their disaster preparedness plans and safety notification / emergency messaging network. Some of the many benefits of digital displays in an emergency situation include:
- Ability to reach the hearing impaired
- Good return on investment if used regularly for other uses like way-finding or day to day messaging
- Can be portable or mobile
- Placement can be inside buildings (class rooms, hallways) and public areas (cafeterias, student unions, break rooms) as well as outside
- No sign-up is required to receive messages
- Can receive alert messages from local or national sources directly (IPAWS, CMAS, SMS from federal, state and local officials)
- Intrusive with proper placement, attention grabbing
- Messages can be bright and bold to capture viewers (bright yellow or red) or have movement (flashing icon) or sound to draw more attention
- Easy integration with other solutions so one message can be sent across multiple mediums for greater impact (loudspeakers, phone, text-message, etc)
- Messages reach recipients quickly
- Good for traffic control, crowd control and alerts during major events
- They can be used for routine communications so that the public is trained to expect they will get useful information from them
Common Alert Protocol (CAP) Compliance
One of the many benefits of Scala software is our ability to be CAP Compliant. According to the OASIS standard, "The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) is a simple but general format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings over all kinds of networks. CAP allows a consistent warning message to be disseminated simultaneously over many different warning systems, thus increasing warning effectiveness while simplifying the warning task… CAP provides a template for effective warning messages based on best practices identified in academic research and real-world experience."