A shared dispatch centre solution

By installing the same dispatch system, three emergency communications centres are preparing to share, access and use each others' radio resources.

What do you do if you’re an emergency communications centre director and a storm of Hurricane Sandy proportions hits your region, wiping out your call-taking and dispatch operations just when your community needs them most?

Until recently, you’d have had to move your operations to a backup location equipped with the extra radio and phone systems. This assumes you had already funded, purchased and set up the additional site this would require. But the advent of IP-based communication technologies means more flexible, less expensive alternatives are emerging.

Several public safety agencies in the USA are equipping themselves to back each other up from their own locations with just the click of a mouse. The nine counties that make up Pennsylvania’s Northern Tier Regional Telecommunications Project are already able to answer 911 calls for each other if and when the need arises. And three of them - Elk, Clarion and Clearfield - have just taken this a step further by installing a system that will eventually enable them to include backup radio dispatch as well.

The Clearfield County dispatch centre.

A solution for safety

The Northern Tier Telecommunications project began when the nine counties decided to confront head-on a problem that is common to many public safety answering points (PSAPs) - the need to find ways to fund and maintain their communications equipment and ensure that it can support emerging standards and technologies, even as their budgets decline.

Some other communities had responded by merging their numerous smaller communications centres into a single, consolidated agency. Although this can increase efficiencies and cut costs, it can also reduce local responsiveness and eliminate jobs.

Michael McGrady had what he thought was a better idea. The president of MCM Consulting Group, McGrady had been asked to help the member counties of the Northern Tier Telecommunications Project develop a comprehensive strategic plan that would enable them to fulfil their respective missions and cut costs.

He proposed that instead of consolidating and reducing the number of PSAPs, the Northern Tier group develop a regional, next-generation 911 network over which they could share a variety of resources and provide backup for each other. Each member of the group would have the freedom to participate in the regionalisation of any or all of the services a PSAP typically provides, from 911 call-taking and radio dispatch to mapping, computer aided dispatch and call logging. This approach, McGrady reasoned, would keep the agencies current; improve the efficiency and redundancy of their operations; and reduce their equipment, maintenance and network costs.

“This is about regionalising technology, not consolidation,” McGrady explains. “When you regionalise, you not only create more redundancy and efficiency in your system, but you maintain the independence of your agency, prolong the life of your PSAPs, and preserve jobs.” He adds that state and federal 911 funds are becoming increasingly available to “… incentivise regional technology projects”.

The entire Northern Tier group agreed to participate in what would be the first phase of their regionalisation project, which involved setting up a fibre network and installing the updated equipment needed to support the sharing of 911 call-taking operations across all nine counties. This phase went live in mid-2013. Since that time, the participants in the project have indeed been able to answer each other’s 911 calls, and a 10th county (Erie) has joined the system.

This was a great first step. But it wasn’t the last. Clearfield County Emergency Services 911 Director Joe Bigar explains why: “With a multiagency phone system, if Elk County is busy, we can answer and process their phone calls,” he says “but we can’t dispatch for them.”

The next logical step would be to extend the capability to the counties’ radio dispatch operations. The goal of this phase of the project would be to eventually access and use each other’s radio channels and other radio resources. If one of the agencies were to be evacuated, its dispatchers would be able to walk into one of the other agencies, sit down at a console and start dispatching as if they were at their own centre. Or the incapacitated centre’s operations could be assumed by one of the other counties’ dispatchers from their centre. Either way, the operations would be maintained.

Elk, Clarion and Clearfield counties were the first to decide to install the new dispatch equipment necessary to regionalise their dispatch services. Regionalisation wasn’t their only consideration, however. All three PSAPs’ dispatch systems had reached their ‘end of life’. “The manufacturer of our existing system told us that we could continue to use it if we wanted to,” says Clarion County 911 Director Lance Theiss, “but if we had issues, we were on our own.”

They all decided that not only would they install new dispatch equipment, but also they would each standardise on the same equipment - Zetron’s MAX Dispatch - so it would be interoperable. They also agreed that new equipment would be IP-based and would have to support technology that would allow them to regionalise their dispatching.

Going live

Zetron’s IP-based MAX Dispatch system was not the only system considered for the project. But it was the one that would give them, as Bigar puts it, “the biggest bang for our buck”. It offered a host of highly desirable features and functionality, such as configurable screens that could be laid out to mimic the screens of the previous equipment at each centre - which would minimise the number of new things dispatchers would have to learn. “It’s a top priority to make things easy for our dispatchers,” says Clearfield County Systems Administrator Jeremy Ruffner. “We liked the MAX system because it would be simple for them to learn and use.”

Last but not least, the three agencies would be able to use MAX Dispatch Portal, a licensed software service that will eventually link the three counties’ systems and allow resource sharing and backup between them. Although the portal is not being implemented immediately, it is the vital piece that will put the three PSAPs on the path to regionalisation.

The three PSAPs installed their new MAX Dispatch systems throughout late 2013 and early 2014. Elk County was first. “We installed the new system in parallel with their old one and kept them both running until we had all of the details smoothed out,” says Greg Muhich, owner of Chestnut Ridge Radio Communications, the Zetron reseller who handled the project.

“Elk County’s installation includes six regular positions - which is what they had before - and two on tablets,” Muhich adds. “So in addition to their fixed positions, they have two that they can use to quickly set up remote and mobile operations if and when they need them.”

Elk’s installation went live in December 2013, with Clarion’s going live in January 2014 and Clearfield’s in February. “I really like the MAX system,” says Theiss. “My dispatchers like it too, and if our dispatchers like it, I’m happy. Plus, it’s easy to administer. I can go in and change something easily and quickly if need be. It’s very user friendly.”

“Next will be the portal and working with our neighbouring counties to discover what we’ll be able to do with it, what features we’ll want and how we’ll work together to implement it," says Elk County Emergency Management Director Mike McAllister. "It offers wonderful possibilities that we’re looking forward to.”