Emergency Broadcast Systems: Optimize Them With Text to Speech

Text to speech can help optimize Emergency Broadcast Systems designed to support operations in the event of earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, wildfires, or other critical situations. Unfortunately, all these events can be unexpected and pose an immediate danger to everyone involved in them. In fact, they can be catastrophic. Luckily, technology, including emergency broadcast systems, can help in the emergency services efforts to evacuate areas when necessary. These systems can assist people experiencing emergency situations to find the quickest escape route. Text to speech can help to optimize Emergency Broadcast Systems.

Tragically, many events had devastating effects around the world in 2018, with significant loss of life, damage to property, and natural environments. Business Insider looks back on some of the most tragic events, here. However, even in scenarios that don’t appear to be particularly threatening, like working automated machinery in a factory, or airport facility systems, there can be severe disruption when malfunction occurs. This can lead to widespread alarm, which can quickly become devastating.  

In the panic that spreads in an emergency situation, people in distress greatly benefit from a clear and calming voice giving them directions and guiding them to safety. And this is where text to speech is really useful. The most natural-sounding text-to-speech voices are becoming increasingly popular, in applications and systems around the world. People who build alert and warning systems know that text-to-speech software has become dependable, even in critical situations. Moreover, it’s easy to integrate synthetic voices into most announcement systems, from basic ones to the most sophisticated.

Speed is Crucial

In an emergency, time is of the essence. Every minute that passes, lives may be at stake and timely information is the key to survival. Text to Speech can generate emergency messages like this one:

“ALERT: Tornado Warning in this area until (TIME). Take shelter now”

Click here to listen to an example

and broadcast to thousands, even millions of people in a matter of seconds. It’s no surprise that highly reliable text-to-speech software is preferred in broadcasting emergency alerts. It’s easy to see why: If a human voice were used to announce the message during an emergency, precious seconds would be wasted in getting to a broadcasting device, connecting to the right audience, and then articulating the situation. Text to Speech skips all that. It provides a one-step solution: type the message and the emergency alert notification is sent out almost instantly.

Clear Speech Means Clear Directions

There’s an important reason why directions have to be spoken clearly: People need to hear clear and concise information. Otherwise, confusion spreads easily and that can make things worse. But thankfully, text-to-speech technology has reached a point where it closely resembles and can be mistaken for human speech! However, it is important to emphasize that in critical situations, digital voices for emergency broadcast systems need to be of the highest quality.

Interesting fact: Over 200 local governments and broadcasting stations in Japan use ReadSpeaker’s text-to-speech engine VoiceText to provide alerts and notifications.

Some cities, like Gotsu, Japan, provide emergency information to their residents using outdoor PA systems. They chose VoiceText for their public alert system because the voices were “easy to hear” and no complicated training was required.

What Are the Options?

Text to Speech is easy to deploy in all types of announcement systems. There are several high-quality options available. One is VoiceText Editor, the desktop application for easy offline voice content creation. It’s an intuitive tool for easily generating static audio files for common emergency messages.

Aso, another city in Japan, has a website dedicated to providing emergency information to its residents. After a devastating 7.0 earthquake struck their region in 2016, they were committed to keeping their residents informed about their roads, public transport, reconstruction aid, and more. Even with their damaged infrastructure, they were still able to create helpful infographics and materials embedded with audio files created using VoiceText Editor.

In parallel, another solution for emergency broadcast systems is VoiceText Server, the solution that dynamically creates custom alerts. Radio stations, fire stations, and other broadcasting facilities can host multiple speech servers to cover broader area ranges. We recommend this option over VoiceText Editor when there is variable information involved, with details like time, location, and contact numbers.

Why is Text to Speech to Go-To Solution? 

To conclude, high-quality text-to-speech voices are the clear-cut solution for emergency broadcast systems. The solution is simple to integrate and can save many lives compared relying on humans to record emergency alerts. Above all, Text to Speech is the solution of choice because it gets the right information across to many people, in a number of languages, when they need it the most.

Learn More About Text to Speech for Emergency Broadcast Solutions 

Would you like to find out more about how our text-to-speech software can support your emergency solutions? Check out the information on our website here. You can find further details about ReadSpeaker text-to-speech solutions here

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