Dubai rolls out new safety system for 40,000 buildings

The Dubai Life Safety Dashboard will allow the authority, other government departments, building owners and even residents to view the safety status of buildings in real-time via smart devices.

Maj Gen Rashid Al Matroushi, the director of Dubai Civil Defence, says the new system will allow his department to detect faults such as defective fire or water systems. Lee Hoagland / The National

DUBAI // More than 40,000 buildings have been equipped with Dubai Civil Defence’s new system to monitor safety. Plans are in place to increase that number to 70,000 within three years.

The Dubai Life Safety Dashboard will allow the authority, other government departments, building owners and even residents to view the safety status of buildings in real time on smart devices. At the moment, requests for information are sent to the operations room in what is often a time-consuming process.

“Every building owner in Dubai will be provided with their individual building dashboard that displays the health and safety status of their buildings,” said Maj Gen Rashid Al Matroushi, the director of DCD.

“The dashboard will also enable other government departments to facilitate innovative services to building owners and occupants in Dubai.”

Buildings will be linked to two main operations rooms, in Jebel Ali and DCD headquarters.

The dashboards display information such as whether the water systems, or fire sprinkler systems, are functioning correctly.

Gen Al Matroushi said there were more than 200,000 structures in Dubai and the focus would be on installing the systems first in hospitals, schools, high-rise buildings, warehouses and factories.

“The Dubai Life Safety Dashboard allows readers to understand complex data in less time than it would to read similar material located in the text of a full report,” he said. Gen Al Matroushi said departments received thousands of streams of data, and the system presents this data in a way that makes sense.

“With this new dashboard, Civil Defence can now track key performance metrics of individual buildings and Civil Defence activities.”

The DCD director said the new system would allow his department to detect faults, such as defective fire or water systems.

The most common breach encountered was building emergency exit doors being locked.

“There have been cases in which we’ve seen buildings with their emergency exits locked, which is extremely dangerous if a fire breaks out,” he said. The fine for this offence ranges from Dh10,000 to Dh100,000.

Gen Al Matroushi said Dubai residents should not be scared of living in skyscrapers because these buildings were often better equipped against fires than low structures.

“High-rise buildings are fully equipped in case of fires and, in fact, it is easier to put out and control a blaze in a high-rise building than a lower structure, which is not necessarily equipped with the right tools,” he said.

Gen Al Matroushi said the dashboard initiative was in line with Dubai Government’s vision for a smart city.