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Police radio communications standard begins roll-out
A new national standard for radio communications, known as AirwaveSpeak will begin roll-out to the police service in the England, Wales and Scotland. AirwaveSpeak is part of a broader strategy by the National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) to assist police forces to increase efficiency, enhance interoperability and support frontline policing.
Feedback from forces raising concerns over the standards in radio discipline for voice over-the-air police communications led to the development of a common national standard. A team of linguistic professionals working as Prolingua, were employed to develop the standard alongside a group of police officers and staff - including representatives from the Federation and Unison - and is based around the principles of Accuracy, Brevity, Clarity and Discipline.
Richard Earland, Chief Information Officer at the NPIA said, “AirwaveSpeak was developed to improve communication between radio users and across force borders. It is sensible to support Airwave users so that they have a succinct and simple language to use over the air. Our role is to assist in the implementation of the standard to aid forces to deliver a better service to the public.”
AirwaveSpeak offers a number of benefits which has an impact on the general public. Consistent and concise communications ensures that there is no confusion in radio voice transmissions, which ultimately leads to faster and more efficient day-to-day policing.
Other key benefits include:
• It provides a clear radio language which can be easily utilised and understood by all police forces using everyday terminology.
• It will ensure clear and unambiguous transmissions when different forces and police organisations are interoperating at major and national events.
• It provides a potential cost benefit as verbal clarity in initial transmissions and shorter transmissions equate to fewer repeated messages and less ‘air time’ being used, thus reducing costs.
• Standardisation of terminology should result in improved radio discipline and assist communications room staff in terms of recording clear information.
• Opportunity for users to speak where there is currently suppressed demand due to unnecessary lengthy voice transmissions.
