1526 Chapter 40
floor will be inaudible. This is much like the difference
in shining a flashlight in a completely dark room versus
one with background lighting.
40.5.1 Voice Evacuation/Mass Notification Systems
by Vic Cappetta, Cooper Notification
A logical evolution for message repeaters is the devel-
opment of voice evacuation systems for life safety
applications.
Cooper Notification, with the company’s brands
Wheelock£, Safepath£ Wa v e s£, and Roam Secure£
offers complete solutions consisting of supervised noti-
fication and audio systems, RF control, and network
alerting.
Depending on the application, Voice Evacuation and
Mass Notification are terms that are often used inter-
changeably. The term voice evacuation is traditionally
used in the fire alarm industry; the term Mass Notifica-
tion is more recent and has its origins in military installa-
tions and an ever-growing presence on college campuses.
The term Mass Notification has been adopted by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is specified and
defined in a driving document known as the UFC
(Unified Facilities Criteria). Mass Notification require-
ments are detailed and specific, including intelligibility
performance. The intelligibility aspect is gaining more
and more momentum as a way of defining clear
communications over a loudspeaker system. Basically,
intelligibility measurements deal with a percentage of
loss of consonant definition (%Alcons method) or may
be measured on CIS (combined intelligibility scale) or
STI (speech transmission index) platforms.
Voice evacuation is self-explanatory—a system
broadcasts recorded or live voice announcements over a
loudspeaker system, typically within a building. Mass
Notification, which can be the same thing, can also
extend to outdoor areas; for example, military bases or
university campus environments. The differences can be
subtle: the term Mass Notification is more often used
when the system is used for more than simple fire
messages; for example, severe weather, industrial inci-
dents such as noxious gas release, or bomb threats.
If a Voice Evacuation system is specified as a Fire
Alarm system, the system must be UL listed for fire,
and the entire system must be monitored for integrity
(supervised).
This means that all internal aspects such as power
supplies, voice modules, etc., as well as external aspects
such as speaker loops must be monitored for shorts,
opens, or ground fault. These conditions must be
reported as troubles to the system headend.
The UFC basically defers to NFPA (National Fire
Protection Association) for its technical requirements;
therefore Mass Notification systems are typically super-
vised and resemble fire alarm notification systems in
many respects. Some differences include the use of
amber strobes instead of clear strobes in order to differ-
entiate between fire notification and other life threat-
ening events such as a bomb threat.
Traditional notification (horn strobes) or Voice Evac-
uation systems may be grouped together and
accessed/initiated by radio frequency (RF). Cooper
Notification’s WAVES£ product line offers command
and control capability that allows system operators to
access traditional Wheelock£ horns and horn strobes,
or individual and multiple Safepath£ systems from a
PC-based command and control security point. Systems
may be addressed by zone and prerecorded messages or
live voice announcements can be initiated. The
WAV E S£ product line also includes large outdoor
high-power fixed and/or portable (TACWAVES) horn
arrays that can be configured as standalone access
points in the system—thereby achieving indoor as well
as outdoor coverage. The outdoor horn arrays can be
powered by local ac power, or solar charged batteries—
eliminating cable installations in large geographical
land mass situations, Fig. 40-13.
Mass Notification may also include network alerting,
such as blast e-mails to networked PCs and text alerting
over cellphones and Blackberries£, as well as alerting
pocket pagers.
Cooper Notification’s Roam Secure£ product line
may be tied into the entire system for a complete notifi-
cation solution.40.5.1.1 Case StudyScenario. An incident indicating universal alerting with
as much coverage as possible, such as a random act of
violence on a college campus.Solution. Mass Notification. Campus security with one
action can initiate live or prerecorded messages with
flashing strobes over targeted zone loudspeaker systems
inside and outside the buildings, while simultaneously
broadcasting text messages over LAN networks as well
as cell phones and Blackberries£.