ICTs and the limits of integration: Converging professional routines and ICT support in colocated emergency response control rooms

Abstract

In this article we have tried to establish how the nature of professional routines affects the ICT supported standardization and scripting of work performed by operators in Dutch colocated emergency response control rooms. In this type of multidisciplinary emergency control room three professions – police, fire rescue services and ambulance services – share the same technical facilities and are housed under the same roof.

In the control rooms under study, efforts to create a more integrated control room are accompanied by a pursuit to further script and standardize operator intake and dispatch routines with the help of ICTs.

Findings suggest that important impediments to the ICT supported scripting and standardization of operator intake and dispatch routines are not of a Human-Machine Interface (HMI) nature, but can mainly be attributed to differences in the nature of each of the three disciplines' professional routines themselves. These impediments are primarily related to ostensive as well as performative aspects of distinct sets of routines in the colocated control room.