24 January 2018
Date 24/01/2018, Brussels
On Wednesday 23th January, practitioners from 16 European countries gathered to contribute to BroadWay, a EU pre-commercial procurement (PCP) project which aim is to pave the way for a pan-European mobile broadband network for public safety.
“We are very happy to be here today with PPDR practitioners from all across Europe to present and discuss BroadWay. It really shows that practitioners today acknowledge the need for more cross-border cooperation and mobility.” Uwe Kippnich – Bavarian Red Cross and Chair of the PEVT
Natural Disasters, Crime and Terrorism know no borders and European first responders should be able communicate, share and access information regardless of their location. Given the current climate and increasingly complex and diffuse threats, there is a clear need to enhance Europe’s resilience and improve the capability of European first responders to cope with difficult crisis situations.
This is the challenge currently addressed by the BroadWay project: A team of 11 procurers from 11 European countries which have come together with the common challenge to procure innovation activity to enable a pan-European broadband mobile system for use by our public safety responders.
To achieve this, BroadWay will follow a pre-commercial procurement (PCP) process which will be formally procure innovative designs, prototypes and a pan-European pilot system which will be carefully evaluated by two different entities throughout the project lifetime: the Practitioner Evaluation Team (PEVT), which gathered yesterday in Brussels and which will provide feedback about on-the-ground requirements, and the technical validation committee (TVC) which will ensure the quality of the pre-commercial solutions and how they address our BroadWay challenge. So far, more than 60 innovative suppliers have expressed interest, and await publication of our request for Tender which we expect to publish during February.
Since BroadWay is aimed at enabling cross-border communication between first-responders, it is no surprise that responder practitioners are a crucial element in this project. The procured prototypes will be evaluated by the PEVT to ensure that the system will fulfill the needs of our responders. The PEVT will namely define the real-world evaluation scenarios for the final pilot system and influence the scope of the BroadWay objectives as suppliers move beyond the design phase and prepare for the prototype and pilot phases of the PCP.
“I am happy to be part of the PEVT that will work with the Project consortium to develop a Pan European Mobile Broadband system for PPDR’s. It is an ambitious project and deserves the full support and commitment of all emergency service stakeholders in Europe”. Finian Joyce – Fire Chief Officer and secretary of the network of senior fire officer associations (FEU)
The procured pre-commercial solutions are expected to be available towards early 2022.
