It's a standard story: An incident occurs requiring emergency personnel from different agencies or jurisdictions to respond. Once on the scene, difficulties arise because disparate radio equipment makes it hard for those agencies to communicate.
In recent years, Hendricks County, Ind., had this incident. Fire personnel couldn't communicate once on the scene - prompting intense discussion, and today action, by means of a fresh radio system and the consolidation of four dispatch centers into one.
"That was among the things that helped kick this off," said Larry Brinker, executive director of the brand new Hendricks County Communications Center, which resulted after negotiations and consultations with police, fire, emergency medical services (EMS) and public works. "We had a fire, and four different agencies showed up with four different radios. Because they were fighting the fire, we had to bypass and [give] extra radios to everyone so they could communicate. Now each of them have exactly the same capabilities on a single channel."
About three years ago - following this incident - Hendricks County commissioners agreed that improving 911 communications was critical, and blessed the spending of a 911-surcharge fund on new communications technology.
Funding Dilemma
Knowing this funding was available had police, fire, EMS and public works dreaming of shiny new facilities, and spiffy new technology and capabilities - and the initial plan sought to create everything happen by outfitting all four dispatch centers with might be found.
Officials knew what types of new technologies they wanted in the centers, but found that the $7.5 million generated by a $1 monthly surcharge for 911 emergency services - which was added to every phone line since 1995 - plus some federal grant money wouldn't suffice for the four centers. Equipping all four centers with the technology they envisioned would cost $12 million.
"Everybody wanted to keep their own dispatch centers, however they wanted all the technology options they might possibly have," Brinker said.
"The initial plan we put together, which was likely to outfit all dispatch centers with about three-quarters of the capabilities, was going to cost about $12 million," Brinker said. "We pared it to where we'd operate two centers, and that got us right down to $8.5 million at about 75 percent of the technology. Whenever we brought it down to one location, that freed up enough of the savings that people were able to get 100 percent of the technology we wanted, and take action at the cost we had to utilize."
The result is really a new communications center with state-of-the-art equipment that dispatches for police, fire and emergency medical in Hendricks, Avon, Brownsburg, Danville and Plainfield counties.
"In past times, a 911 call might get transferred several times before it got to the proper place," Brinker said. "Now, all 911 calls arrived at one location, and the call-taker enters the info in to the computer."
Having all of the dispatchers in a single building meant a few things. One, fewer dispatchers will be needed; and two, personnel would be used more efficiently. The county employed 38 call-takers, down from 49 before the consolidation. The guts includes 13 workstations for dispatchers, and each station has six flat video screens that display information about incoming calls.
When there were four centers, each needed to be staffed with several call-takers. If there was an emergency in a single area, the call-takers in one of the centers were overwhelmed as the call-takers in the other centers weren't busy. "We now have eight to 11 people scheduled on duty to take care of multiple emergencies throughout the county," Brinker said.
The goal was to obtain down to the 38 dispatchers through retirement and attrition, and that's exactly how it happened, Brinker said. "No one was fired."
One Radio System
Another little bit of the consolidation is really a common radio system and equipment among police, fire and EMS - a far cry from the times when different departments would show up with different radio equipment.
All 250 emergency vehicles in Hendricks County, including police cars, fire trucks and ambulances, are equipped with a laptop or other digital device, in addition to a radio. Before the consolidation, there have been essentially three different radio systems through the entire state, including a local 800 MHz system and a state 800 MHz system. Unfortunately one was analog and one was digital. "The bad news was that even though [both] were 800, they still couldn't talk to each other," Brinker said.
Now the county's system is digital and allows radio communications like never before, as everyone gets the same equipment, even the SWAT teams, Brinker said. "The SWAT teams usually travel with other agencies. They will have the very same equipment, the same capabilities, and which makes a big difference."
If there is a nonemergency call to the authorities, it's transferred right to the squad car nearest the incident, as each car will be equipped with a GPS device. The authorities unit will respond by voice, on the radio or by pressing an "en-route" button on the computer. All 250 emergency vehicles will be equipped with a GPS device in order that dispatchers can see the exact location of every vehicle. Dispatchers may also call up three-dimensional aerial photos of a house or business to alert first responders of the locations of doors, windows and other features of the structure.
Local police personnel can communicate directly with dispatch sufficient reason for almost every other unit. "Most of law enforcement is working on one talk group and everybody can hear what the other departments are doing," Brinker said. "Just how we do that is we only broadcast the emergency dispatches over the radio as the rest of it really is done over a mobile data terminal in the cars."
Sheriff Dave Galloway expects a few of the kinks to be worked out of the system when the GPS devices come in place and everyone becomes acquainted with multiple agencies. "I'm the sheriff of the county, and I'm not notified on some major events that happen in a timely manner," he said. "It's minor stuff really, getting coordinated on record services, jurisdictions and things such as that. We have new people working together in the dispatch center. It's a new system and they're learning and sometimes they don't really know who's been notified, who was not notified and who must be notified. And we don't possess GPS operational yet. At this time we have officers being sent from too far away."
Eye on Indiana
That functionality makes Hendricks County unique in hawaii, and other regions are watching to observe how the system will work. "That's not even very common among individual cities," Brinker said. "Larger cities will create a north district and a south district where they'll have the capability of switching channels to talk, but they're not necessarily on that one channel."
An example of the new system's value was evident recently when an armed robbery was broadcast over the 800 MHz radio system in Plainfield. Two officers from the town of Avon been driving through Plainfield and heard the air call. They arrived within seconds and setup a perimeter before Plainfield officers arrived. Once on Discover the Secrets of Internet Marketing , all units were able to communicate via the radio system. With the old system in place, those Avon officers would never have known concerning the robbery and could have driven through town.
The county purchased 500 portable radios, an additional radio tower, Motorola MOSCAD firehouse and weather alerting systems, and equipped all police cars with Motorola ML 900 laptops.
"With the firehouse alerting, each time a fire run happens, it will set off the tones at the firehouse, and it has the capabilities of opening the garage doors, can change on and off lights in certain regions of the firehouse and also turns on the speakers in the firehouse, so they can hear the call throughout the building," Brinker explained.
"It had been time we in Hendricks County had the ability to talk to one another," Galloway said. "The public will undoubtedly be better served with this particular system. The ability to communicate is of vital importance to public safety, and I'm in favor of one system so that police, fire and EMS can communicate. This is going to maintain positivity for the citizens of Hendricks County."
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Police, Fire and EMS 911 Dispatch Consolidation In Hendricks County, Indiana
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