The Operation Support Team (OST) from 42 Engineer Regiment (Geographic) demonstrated the diverse needs of data in times of national need by navigating events such as evacuations from Sudan, the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II, earthquakes in Turkey and the Eurovision Song Contest. OST goes beyond being just a military division and acts as a first responder for multiagency spatial data visualisation, often on an international scale. The team excels at turning complex swathes of data into easy visualisations that are suitable for non-data professionals to improve data-driven decision making for governments, military and international relief organisations.
“A level above in terms of usability and impact.” – Judges’ comment
For example, regarding the Turkish earthquakes, it is the unique ability of OST to identify, collect, cohere, analyse and visualise data that proved vital to the initial undertaking of relief efforts. This allowed for prioritisation of resource in the UK to better support the efforts ultimately saving lives and improving the speed of recovery for affected regions.
The support provided by OST to Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s Funeral received the following quote from the military commander for Operation BRIDGE: “OST’s visualisation was an absolute force multiplier. With forces coming from across all three services and split between eight locations a useable and accessible online tool that was able to relay geographic data (routes, spots, etc) was vital. It enabled the Ops teams in these locations to brief routes and control measures in a way that made sense, was easily visualised and interactive. This was then backed up by physical product with the same information, with the short notice timeline for force generation the online tool was the first port of call for briefings of personnel dragged in from across the services.”
The OST has continued to evolve in recent years and have found themselves at the vanguard of geospatial development tools providing new ways to visualise multi-domain operating environments for collaborations with international teams. The solutions created by OST have enabled military commanders with troops on the ground to provide new ways of support through analysing congestion times, iterative routes, complex river systems and more. Prior to this new technology, these had only been possible to analyse through paper-based maps and manual capabilities which proved time-consuming and often inaccurate. Now, users of OST solutions are presented with an answer, an explanation and an ability to explore other options.
The work of OST is world leading and is the envy of other nations – so much so that their methods of visualisation are currently being adopted by more than half of NATO’s geospatial community.
