Case Study: University of South Australia achieves enhanced campus safety and major cost savings with CriticalArc SafeZone

University of South Australia - Customer Case Study

The University of South Australia (UniSA), serving 32,000 students and staff across six campuses spanning 800 km, faced gaps in incident and crisis communications, rising 24/7 campus usage, high capital costs for fixed help points, underreporting by vulnerable or overseas students, and limitations of SMS for mass notification. To address these challenges UniSA engaged CriticalArc and implemented its SafeZone cloud-based smartphone app and mobile command-and-control service.

CriticalArc’s SafeZone was deployed in under six weeks, with 97% of early users finding the app easy to use; students and staff gained a “help point in their pocket” while security officers used the responders’ app for real-time situational awareness and coordinated responses. The solution removed the need for expensive fixed help points and a central control room, enabled zero-cost mass messaging, improved coverage across six disparate campuses, enhanced lone-worker safety and OH&S compliance, and delivered measurable cost and operational efficiencies for UniSA’s 32,000-strong community.

University of South Australia

Dominic Marafiroti

Campus Facilities Manager