Phoenix V4 is the latest release of ACTIVE's powerful deployment and contingency planning tool specifically developed for Fire Service operational planning in conjunction with a consortium of Fire and Rescue Services.

The Need for Phoenix V4

Phoenix was designed to help Fire and Rescue Services understand the workload placed on operational resources for any deployment scenario. This is a key component in the modernisation process, and will enable operations managers to make robust, evidence based decisions, informed decisions.

How does Phoenix V4 it work?

Phoenix is a hypothetical model which analyses workload, risk cover, and projected performance for varying numbers of pumps, locations of pumps and shift patterns. ACTIVE has an extensive knowledge of deployment planning within the ambulance service setting, and this thinking and optimisation technique has been brought forward to enable Fire Services to do more with less.

What makes Phoenix V4 different to other systems or services?

Phoenix is the only system available to the market which models workload, giving an alternative option to expensive consultancy. Our sector specialists will train Fire Service staff to be able to carry out 'what if' analysis for themselves, but are always available to support or rubberstamp projects for our clients. As with all of our products, Phoenix has been designed to be fast and easy to use. A range of deployment scenarios can be run in seconds. For example, changing pumps from wholetime to retained, or adding a pump to one particular station. All of these questions can be answered in a risk free environment, giving managers a confidence about the decisions that have to be made in planning for the future.

This system is complimentary to the FSEC toolkit, and by working in a different way, it offers a second opinion to provide a sound evidence base for the key decisions that have to be made by Senior Managers.

How flexible is Phoenix V4?

The flexibility of resources, stations and crewing the system offers means there are many other applications for Phoenix V4. Many other Fire and Rescue Services have used Phoenix to assess variations in response standards and resource numbers and case studies are available on request. Incident data is simply queried and used as the basis to create the hypothetical model, meaning that the date period and call types used are set by the user. We have recently worked with Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Service to predict demand changes in the future based on local development plans for housing and commercial property. The aim of this work is to further future proof any decisions that are made by showing some consideration of what might happen in the future.

Whats new in Phoenix V4?

• Improved workload algorithm to further increase accuracy
• Greater flexibility means the user can both ADD and REMOVE pumps and measure the impact in seconds
• Crewing and vehicle availability can be set by day and hour of the week. The means that the user can simulate the effect of different crewing at different times, and also the effects of vehicles being unavailable
• Additional statistics are now reported, such as total time committed and average committed by pump and by each risk and incident category

Summary

Crucially, TSM Phoenix is used within thirteen different Fire Services to allow our users to understand the impact of operational change quickly and with unlimited flexibility, where this is not adequately addressed in any other system. The system provides an instant return on investment, in terms of saving staff time, but the biggest return is in the optimisation that can be carried out as a result. Just a couple of operational tweaks identified by Phoenix V4 can more than pay for the product outright.