There has been a lot of information about Madrid Arena Halloween party, in which four women was killed in a stampede. Most of this information is related to political responsabilities, but there are an issue that has gone unnoticed and I think there Is very important from business continuity perspective. It’s the role played by mobile communications in whole crisis.
According to the testimony of the participants, it seems that there were a mobile communications breakdown, mainly due to the great amount of people in such a small space. It similar to what happen in a sport event with huge crowds, for example a football match each weekend or to what happened last year in the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona.
However, when this situation occurs in crisis scenarios we have two problems:
- Those affected cannot communicate or make emergency calls
- Emergency teams cannot communicate with each other in order coordinate if this communications depend on the mobile generic infrastructure.
In order to avoid this kind of situations, there are two options: make the service stronger or use an alternative service.
Thinking on the attendees, there could be explored the possibility of providing an alternative coverage (wifi network). With such a large crowd, it will probably has the same problem than the generic mobile infrastructure, but it will not be dependent on a mobile operator and could be offered as an aggregated service to the whole infrastructure.
There are mobile cells to allow operators improve mobile coverage in special locations, moreover, there are companies focused on offer coverage in public locations with a large crowds, for example Spring.
However, although could be technical solutions to avoid this kind of situations, neither facilities responsible will include wifi service, nor mobile operators will strengthen coberage in an altruistic way. Government should include this as a requirement for license this kind of events with the guarantee that mobile communications will be delivered.
On the other hand, in order to allow the communications between members of emergency teams they use the RF network, Tetra. This network were not working because the walls were of concrete, so emergency staff had to use they own personal mobiles to allow the communications with other members. This situation is complicate to avoid without valuing the architectural problems of the building.
A good practice could be to advise the attendees about the problem that they could have when using their mobiles, specially when the location are not prepared to host a very huge crowd, form example in public demonstrations. Generalitat of Catalunya do it every year when is near the day of National Day of Catalunya.
