Regional Warning System

RSO – Regional Warning System

Client: TVP Polish Television/ Polish Ministry of Interior and Administration
Industry: Informational industry
Lead time: 08.2017 – 12.2017

The Regional Warning System is a free mobile app provided by the Polish Ministry of Interior and Administration that offers information about the potential threats for citizens all over the country. The information is prepared and sent out by the provincial crisis management centres. The application also serves to educate the public about the general measures and safety procedures in the case of crisis situations.

About the Client

TVP Polish Television is the public provider of television channels available through the terrestrial digital television. The main activities of Polish Television is: sale and purchase of licences, distribution activities, international co-productions, publications and promoting Polish productions on international film festivals.

The project was carried out on the TVP Polish Television request, and the main client was the Polish Ministry of Interior and Administration, which offers services to the general minister of three governmental administration departments: public administration, interior affairs, and religion or ethnic minorities. The main target of the Ministry is to ensure safety and public order.

The purpose of the project

The project was aimed to increase the level of local public welfare through the activation of the mobile application with faster and more effective information flow about the potential threats.

Result

So far there have been the following channels of information distribution: websites of the governors, information strips and teletext on TV sets with terrestrial DVB signal and hybrid internet television hbbtv. The client received an additional channel via free mobile app. The advantage of this channel is its constant access to information thanks to push alerts on the phone.

Solutions

There are the following categories of messages within the RSO: general, meteorological, hydrological, traffic, flood or drought warnings.

There are 3 types of messages:

Alerts – featuring information;
Warnings – signaling potential threats, indicating local problems and provide warnings from IMGW. The information about the threats occur on the straps of TV devices receiving DVB signal on TVP channels.
Warning alarms – signaling the level of threats which requires providing the information to majority of public, therefore The Regional Centre of Crisis Management sends the information through the PUSH channel and on the straps of TV devices receiving DVB signals on TVP channels, on the regional level.

The user may chose the type of message to be received and may decide from which region the information will be provided (one or many voivodeships or from the whole country). The application has got the option of geo-localization that can be activated and set up by the user. When geo-localization is switched on it enables the transfer of the warning alarms and messages adequate to the user position. The duration of each specific alert is also available and displayed in the app.

In the RSO application the user may find a wide range of guidebooks on how to act in crisis situations. They are described in a simple and understandable way, regularly updated and made available to all the users without the need of mobile app updates. RSO also offers very important educational function in regards to crisis situation procedures.

Challenges

Users positioning system required to obtain information about specific localization of alerts.

Future

The functionalities of the mobile application may be developed and adjusted in order to identify other threats. For example, it may be a perfect tool to inform about the state of COVID-19 virus spread.