Thomas Breen photo
Briscoe testifies.
The city department that handles 911 calls is looking to upgrade a critical component of its communications technology to ensure that notifications sent to the fire department are appearing in a timely and accurate manner.
The technology it uses right now, which was first installed over two decades ago, is faulty and unreliable, and may exacerbate delays in dispatching emergency responders.
So testified Director of Public Safety Communications (PSAP, or “public safety answering point”) Michael Briscoe at a Board of Alders Finance Committee hearing held at City Hall last Thursday night on the Harp Administration’s proposed $554.5 million operating budget.
Briscoe’s department uses a Zetron communications system. The Zetron system offers a direct communication link between PSAP and the fire department, sending notifications and alarms to alert firefighters that a call from PSAP is coming through.
His department’s $225,000 proposed capital budget for Fiscal Year 2017 – 18 has a $200,000 line item for communications equipment, which would be spent primarily on upgrading this system. PSAP’s proposed general fund budget is $3.379 million, which is a 0.3 percent decrease over this past year’s. Briscoe chalked up his department’s cost saving to better training, lower turnover, and a 23 percent reduction in overtime.
After praising Briscoe for PSAP’s overall budget savings, Annex Alder Al Paolillo, Jr. asked the department head for details on the required system upgrade.
Paolillo (at left in photo).
“We talk about where we spend dollars, and we have a lot of dollars in front of us being asked for,” Paolillo said, in reference to the committee’s deliberations on the mayor’s proposed budget as a whole. “But I can’t think of a more important place to spend than on cutting down on the response time for our first responders to get to somebody in need. This is something that really affects people’s lives. Can you walk through what the issue is? What’s happening? What should be happening that’s not happening right now?”
“We receive a call,” Briscoe explained. “We triage the call. We figure out what’s going on and what the problem is. If we decide it’s a fire department call, whether for fire or EMS, we have to enter the call into the notification system. But if the system is not working, we won’t know that it’s not working, because everything will still look good on our end.”
The current Zetron system was installed in approximately 1994, Briscoe explained, and its software cannot be integrated with any other technical communications systems that they are using or are planning to use in the future, such as a new microwave and radio channel.
This outdated technology, therefore, results in the occasional dropped notification or alarm; certain fire stations may not receive the necessary indication that a call from PSAP is coming through. The inconsistencies and potential lapses in notifications through the Zetron system could subsequently result in as long as a 30 or 40 second delay, depending on how long it takes for the fire station in question to see that a call is waiting or to receive the emergency alert from PSAP via one of their redundant, manual forms of communication.
“I rode on a firetruck one night,” Paolillo said. “When the firefighters got to their truck, they still didn’t know where they were going. This was at 10 p.m., and they turned on the engine and waited for directions. When we talk about gaps, this is what I’m thinking about. Is this technology going to help with that?”
“Yes,” Briscoe replied. “This is going to solve that problem.”
PSAP received 135,000 911 calls last fiscal year, which is 4,000 more than the year before.