The Queensland Police Service Academy (QPSA) and the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) are responsible for providing training to Incident Response Recruits and Incident Command Officers.
The Queensland Police Service Academy is the central point for developing recruits into Police Officers. The Academy is also the central point for the education and career development of police officers and staff members around the State.
The QFES is comprised of approximately 36,000 Rural Fire Service volunteers, 6,000 State Emergency Service volunteers, approximately 2,200 permanent firefighters, more than 2,000 auxiliary firefighters and supported by non-operational administrative support staff. The emergency workers aim to protect people, property and the environment through the delivery of emergency services, awareness programs, response capability and capacity (preparedness), and incident response and recovery for a safer Queensland.
Training comprises both theory and practical components to deliver world class programs to all members.
The Challenge
As emergency situations are difficult, expensive, and hazardous to recreate, both organisations were looking for an efficient and safe way to provide realistic training environments to complement their training programs. Due to the severity of the duties carried out by emergency response staff, effective training and preparation is critical to the safety of the entire Queensland state.
The Solution
Various components of virtual reality and augmented reality were integrated to develop a Virtual Incident Command and Response Training Solution. This included recreating natural disasters, major accidents, terrorist attacks, sieges, armed offender and public disorder offences, to allow trainees to experience simulated emergencies before facing them in the field.
The solution provided by GHD's Virtual and Augmented Reality (VAR) team included the design and delivery of a procedural training simulator customised to the client’s scenarios, environments and assets including large, multi-projector, curved screen theatres to create immersive training environments.
The virtual reality training model comprised integrated trainee and trainer components. The trainer component (viewer) presents the emergency situation to the trainee, while the trainer component (controller) is used to control and manipulate the training scenarios in real-time in response to the trainees actions. This aspect of concurrent feedback from the trainer component aids in the creation of hyper realistic hypothetical scenarios, which is instrumental for the real world application of the training solution.
Maintenance and support contracts for all hardware and software have been supplied to each organisation and our VAR team continues to provide all maintenance, upgrade and support to this training solution.
The Benefit
The QPSA and QFES have benefitted from a training solution that delivers the required training without the time, costs and risks of traditional delivery. In addition, this engagement will support their training requirements at a regional, national and international level. This is complemented by the ongoing maintenance and support offered by the GHD Team.