Congress Considers Evacuation Tracking

Congress Considers Evacuation Tracking
The U.S. House is evaluating tracking technology for
possible deployment at Congressional facilities in
order to locate House members, staff and visitors
during emergencies.

By Claire Swedberg
http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/1392/1/1/

Feb. 7, 2005—The United States House of
Representatives is seeking technology to track people
in the event of an emergency. Vendors have until Feb.
15 to submit information about a system that could
report on the location of House members, staff and
visitors during an evacuation from House-operated
facilities. Vendors of radio frequency identification
products are among the companies responding to the
House's request.

"There are numerous ways to address tracking," says
Erik Michielsen, the director of RFID and ubiquitous
networks at ABI Research, a consulting firm based in
Oyster Bay, N.Y. Few of these methods, however,
fulfill the House's high-tech requirements, such as
3-D graphical displays.

ABI's Michielsen
"An RFID-hybrid solution would be optimal," Michielsen
says. Such a hybrid could combine biometric
identifiers with RFID. "We're going to be seeing more
of the RFID-biometrics hybrids in the next year,"
Michielsen predicts, because the U.S. government has
shown an interest in that kind of solution.

In its official request for information, posted online
on Dec. 2 at FedBizOpps.gov, a government procurement
Web site, the House's Office of the Chief
Administrator reports that it is seeking "reliable,
robust, and rapid accumulation of real-time
operationally accessible data" concerning the location
and evacuation status of House members, staff and
visitors immediately after an emergency event and for
a 24-hour period afterward. That includes people who
have gathered in assembly areas, those who are in the
building and need to report their status, and those
who have traveled to a different location. This system
would be used only during emergencies and activated
during an evacuation of the U.S. Capitol, the House's
four main offices (the Cannon, Longworth, Rayburn and
Ford buildings), and other smaller House-operated
buildings clustered in an area of 0.8 square miles.

Approximately 13,500 legislators and staff work within
these facilities. At present, the House lacks a system
for keeping track of which people are in the
buildings. Although staff members currently have ID
badges that incorporate an HID-type proximity RFID
transponder, the House has deployed proximity card
readers for access only at select places within the
House complex, but not at building entrances and
exits.

The House is seeking a real-time geographic
information system (GIS) that would not only provide a
3-D graphical display of the buildings but also show
the current position of all individuals within and
around the buildings during an emergency. The system
should also be able to indicate which individuals have
left the buildings and are now in safe locations.

The tracking system would work in two phases. Phase 1
would determine the location of each House member,
employee and visitor and report on building occupancy
status during the first hour of an emergency
evacuation. Phase 2 would provide similar information
for a 24-hour period after an evacuation. The system's
overall purpose is to provide timely information to
law enforcement and House officials regarding the
evacuation process and the safety of its employees, so
that these officials can make tactical and strategic
decisions. Phase 1 data might also be used by
first-responder personnel to help them determine the
percentage of people accounted for, building by
building, and assist these responders in the use of
on-scene emergency resources.

RFID technology would be an obvious solution to meet
the House's requirements because RFID has been used in
similar applications, according to Michael Liard,
director of automatic identification and data
collection (AIDC) and RFID at Venture Development
Corp., a technology market research firm based in
Natick, Mass. For example, Axcess, a Carrollton,
Texas, provider of RFID-enabled access-control,
asset-management and surveillance systems, has
developed a personnel-tracking system much like the
one the House is seeking, and is responding to the
House's RFI. Sense Holdings, a Sunrise, Fla., supplier
of access, security and asset-tracking systems, also
offers a real-time RFID solution for tracking people.

GPS is another technology that can be used to track
people, assuming they are wearing GPS-enabled ID
badges or similar devices, Liard notes. Because the
GPS unit inside a badge needs to have a clear line of
sight with GPS satellites, however, the technology
would work effectively only when people are outdoors.
Although a GPS-based system might be less expensive,
Liard says, "there would be some limitations.
Certainly range and accuracy could become an issue,"
since GPS tracking does not pinpoint locations as
precisely as an RIFD system could.

The Department of Defense has tested the
evacuation-monitoring potential of Axcess's
people-tracking system, which uses ID badges
containing an active RFID tag that can be read by RFID
readers deployed in rooms and corridors (see Using
RFID to Manage Evacuations). That system can provide
emergency personnel with a 2-D graphic display that
shows the location of any DOD worker wearing or
carrying an ID badge. The badge's tag can transmit its
RF signal (either 315 MHz or 433 MHz) through
pocketbooks, briefcases or clothing to readers 30 to
100 feet away, according to Axcess CEO Allan
Griebenow, and the system can read approximately six
ID badges per second.

Axcess's Griebenow
"We can solve the majority [of what the House is
seeking] today," he says, pointing to similar Axcess
systems currently being used by the Department of
Defense to track movement of vehicles and personnel at
military bases.

The cost of providing the House with the system it
seeks could be relatively inexpensive, Griebenow says,
depending on how many RFID readers are needed in
doorways, halls and underground corridors that connect
House buildings. Costs would average $20 per badge for
all employees, about $2,000 for each reader, and about
$10,000 for the operating software, including the
graphical display.

If the House chooses an RFID solution, "this will
bring privacy concerns to a whole new level," says
Liard, observing that lawmakers will find themselves
to be users of a technology that is still under fire
from privacy groups. "The debate [about RFID and
privacy] will only increase." Privacy concerns, he
says, may be one reason the House could be open to a
GPS solution. Emergency roadside service provider
OnStar, for example, uses GPS tracking to provide
assistance to owners of many General Motors vehicles.
"People are comfortable with GPS," he says, "while
RFID is still shrouded in some controversy."

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