GovSec 2011 – Alertus pushes the envelope in mass notification

Volk (left) and Lezell

Jason Volk was a student at the University of Maryland in 2001 when a hurricane suddenly struck the campus and killed two sisters in the area. The tragedy of that day, and Jason’s recognition of the need for better warning devices to protect citizens in jeopardy, led him to found a company, now called Alertus Technologies, LLC, which a decade later is still pushing the envelope on innovative ways to distribute warning messages instantly and effectively.

Volk, the company’s CEO, and David Lezell, the company’s director of federal solutions, spoke with GSN at the recent GovSec show and pointed out three of the features of their warning system which they feel distinguishes Alertus from any of its competitors.

First, Alertus is the only mass notification company which offers “text-to-speech” (TTS) technology, which they claim is better than pre-recorded warning announcements (which can’t be tailored to the unique characteristics of a specific incident) and better than “live” announcements (which can become frantic and unintelligible in the chaos surrounding a bona fide emergency.) Instead, Alertus offers the operator of its system the ability to type into a computer a specific warning message (tailored to the actual unfolding situation), which is automatically translated into the spoken word, in clear, unaccented, panic-free speech.  

“When you record a live human voice, the intelligibility is degraded,” explained Volk. “However, text-to-speech delivers that speech with the highest intelligibility.”

Second, Alertus has developed a relationship with Honeywell under which its public address system (using text-to-speech) is embedded in a module that can fit inside most of Honeywell’s fire alarm audio control panels. That means that the intelligible Alertus voice announcements can be triggered by a Honeywell fire alarm system.

Third, Alertus offers an “Alert Beacon,” which can be mounted on a wall and will flash and sound during an emergency to capture the attention of a building’s occupants.

“The strobes and sounder provide greater coverage reach than speakers for signaling attention, and the integrated text LCD offers message intelligibility magnitudes higher than voice due to the elimination of acoustical disturbances,” explains the company’s website.

Alertus can connect its system to many of the existing mass notification methodologies, but Volk questions the utility of many of those notification systems in certain circumstances:

Cell phones – In an emergency in one specific location, cell phone towers can be overwhelmed by a dramatic surge in usage, and no messages can get though, Volk told GSN.

Land-line telephones -- Too many people simply don’t pick up their land-lines when an alert message is sent to them. It is not a reliable enough means to deliver a vital warning message.

Email – These messages can take hours to arrive in a person’s in-box and too often they won’t see the message or won’t open it. Pop-up screens on a person’s computer screen can more effectively capture their attention.

Pagers –These are used frequently by first responders, but otherwise have become somewhat outdated, said Volk.

Web announcements  -- These can be effective in reaching everyone in a particular population, but they are very passive. They aren’t particularly effective in notifying someone instantly if they are in harm’s way.

Smart phones – These face the same connectivity problems as traditional cell phones, plus messages are restricted to a maximum number of characters.

To supplement these traditional methods of mass notification, Volk and Lezell strongly suggest a text-to-speech module and an Alert Beacon.