Unified Command Domain

Overview#

A major road traffic collision involves two fatalities, a chemical spill, and a blocked motorway. Within four minutes, the police control room activates a Major Incident protocol, generates a METHANE briefing, and opens a shared Common Operating Picture showing ambulance, fire, and hazmat unit positions. Every agency sees the same map. Resource requests go through a structured mutual aid workflow rather than phone calls and radio traffic. That coordinated, standards-based response is what the Unified Command domain makes possible.

The domain provides a multi-agency emergency coordination system designed for public safety answering points and emergency services. It implements ICS (Incident Command System) and JESIP (Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles) standards for managing major incidents, resource allocation, mutual aid coordination, and real-time situational awareness through a Common Operating Picture. TAK integration (ATAK, WinTAK, CloudTAK) extends the picture to tactical field teams.

Key Features#

Major Incident Protocol Management: Activate and manage standardised incident protocols with step-by-step checklists, METHANE briefing support, and protocol template libraries for consistent response procedures.
Common Operating Picture (COP): Share real-time maps across participating agencies with configurable layers for incidents, units, hazards, perimeters, routes, staging areas, hospitals, and weather conditions.
AI-Powered Resource Recommendations: Get intelligent unit recommendations based on distance, estimated time of arrival, unit capabilities, certifications, and current workload for optimal resource deployment.
Mutual Aid Network: Manage partner agency agreements, resource inventories, and aid request workflows for seamless inter-agency resource sharing during major incidents.
Unit Capability Tracking: Register and track emergency units with their certifications, positions, and capabilities to support informed resource allocation decisions.
Partner Notifications: Send multi-channel notifications to partner agencies during incident activation, resource requests, and situation updates.
Multi-Layer Map Objects: Place markers, zone boundaries, route lines, and other geographic objects on the Common Operating Picture for comprehensive situational awareness.
Protocol Templates: Maintain a library of incident protocol templates that can be rapidly activated and customised for different incident types and scales.

Mermaid Diagram#

Use Cases#

Police & Fire Services: Activate standardised ICS/JESIP protocols and coordinate multi-agency response to large-scale emergencies with shared situational awareness across all responding organisations.
Search and Rescue: Request and coordinate specialist resources from partner agencies through structured mutual aid workflows, with capability matching ensuring the right assets reach the right location.
Public Safety Answering Points: Share a real-time Common Operating Picture across all participating agencies so every controller and commander operates from the same information, reducing duplicated effort and communication errors.
Military Aid to Civil Authority: Use AI-powered recommendations and TAK integration to deploy the right units to the right locations, bridging civilian control room infrastructure with tactical field operations through ATAK and WinTAK clients.

Integration#

The Unified Command domain coordinates emergency operations across the platform:

Dispatch: Resource recommendations and unit tracking support dispatch operations.
Incident Management: Protocol activation links to incident records.
Vehicle Telemetry: Real-time unit positions feed into the Common Operating Picture.
Notification System: Partner notifications use the platform notification infrastructure.
Mapping: COP layers integrate with the platform mapping system.

Open Standards#

ICS (Incident Command System): Protocol templates carry an ics_compliant flag and enforce the Gold/Silver/Bronze command hierarchy, with role timeouts and escalation logic aligned to the NIMS/ICS structure used by US and allied civil emergency services.
JESIP (Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Principles): Templates declare a jesip_compliant flag; the service validates that required JESIP roles (Incident Commander, Safety Officer, Liaison Officer) are defined before activation, ensuring multi-agency response meets the UK/Ireland joint standard.
M/ETHANE: The structured major incident briefing format (Major incident, Exact location, Type, Hazards, Access, Number of casualties, Emergency services) is implemented field-by-field and can be broadcast to all involved agencies via the COP session.
Cursor on Target (CoT): TAK integration parses incoming CoT XML events and serialises Argus unit records back to CoT XML for relay to ATAK, WinTAK, and CloudTAK clients, using UDP multicast and TCP stream transport.
GeoJSON (RFC 7946): All Common Operating Picture geometries (route lines, perimeters, hazard zones, unit positions) are stored and exchanged as GeoJSON, with LineString coordinates following the [longitude, latitude] axis order specified by the standard.
EMAC (Emergency Management Assistance Compact): Mutual aid agreement types include an explicit emac variant, modelling the US interstate compact framework for cross-jurisdiction resource sharing during major incidents.
GraphQL: The complete Unified Command API surface is exposed as a Strawberry GraphQL schema, covering protocol lifecycle, COP sessions, resource recommendations, mutual aid, and partner notifications.
WebSocket (RFC 6455): Real-time unit position updates and federated COP events are pushed to connected controllers via WebSocket, with JWT-authenticated upgrade and topic-based fan-out across participating tenants.

Last Reviewed: 2026-02-05 Last Updated: 2026-04-14