Region – Worcester County Sheriff Lewis G. Evangelidis has announced the implementation of a new public safety alert system for all of Worcester County. Ping4 Citizens Alert is a new and highly targeted mobile alert communications system designed to instantly notify citizens about local public safety emergencies such as missing person alerts, severe weather, traffic situations, natural disasters, and fast moving emergency situations.
Created by Ping4, Inc., the Ping4alerts application utilizes state of the art “geo-fencing” technology in combination with location-based technology found readily available in today's smart phones to provide the most precise, local and highly targeted information to notify individuals of an impending or existing public safety emergency.
Currently, the Ping4 public safety alert system is effectively utilized by the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and a number of local law enforcement agencies in the region. Evangelidis will be the first sheriff in New England to deploy the system for a countywide jurisdiction.
“With the recent addition of the Ping4 Citizens Alert mobile phone application for all of Worcester County, we now have the most effective and efficient public safety communications tool available to instantly provide important public safety alerts and information to better serve and protect our citizens,” Evangelidis said.
Citizens Alerts issued by the Sheriff's Office will provide real-time emergency messaging to an individual's iPhone or Android smart phone in a geographically defined area that can be a small as a parking space or as large as the entire county. The geo-fencing technology also has the ability to wake up a phone in the case of an extreme emergency with a public safety audio alert. By working over GPS, cellular networks and Wi-Fi hotspots, Citizens Alerts will not tap data plan minutes or place undue strain on smartphone batteries. In addition, Ping4Safety alerts are universal providing the user geo-specific emergency information locally, regionally, nationally or globally to help keep them safe wherever they travel.
“With this tremendous technology, we now have the ability to instantly notify the citizens of Worcester County about existing local dangers and emergency situations where having immediate information could make the difference between life or death. The Ping4 Citizens Alert system provides us with the most immediate, meaningful and geographically specific public safety information tool to help keep our community as safe as possible,” Evangelidis said.
To download a free Ping4 Citizens Alert App for your iPhone or Android, visit www.worcestercountysheriff.com.
