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Mobile Display Terminals, CAD and 9-1-1 Dispatch AVL Systems - Better than a paper mapbook?
Fire/EMS Mobile Display Terminals and Your 9-1-1 Computer System - Does it work?
In the past, and I'm not talking all that long ago, and still just a dream for many, the 9-1-1 Dispatch Center relied solely on phones and radios to get emergency crews on the road. We all know that computers have changed the world of dispatching and for my department, we have recently had installed MDT's in all of our fire apparatus to utilize a state-of-the-art million Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system.
The CAD system allows the 9-1-1 Dispatch Center staff to react to emergency calls with six features: Paging, Fire Station Alerting, Mobile Display Terminals (MDT), Automatic Vehicle Locators (AVL), 9-1-1 Telephone, and State-of-the-art Mapping.
Paging/Fire-Station Alerting:
Each Fire Captain on an engine or truck and each paramedic in an ambulance wears a pager that contains all the information a unit needs to respond to a call. Fire Station Alerting is the audible tone that goes off in the station to alert units that they have an emergency.
Mobile Display Terminals:
Computer Terminals on Fire/EMS apparatus display the information for a response and allow units to make status changes such as, "responding to incident" or "unit at scene".
Automatic Vehicle Locators:
Satellite controlled vehicle locators that display each Fire/EMS unit's location on an interactive geographical mapping system. The computer allows the dispatcher to check the status and location of all vehicles (Is the engine sitting in the station or at an incident?).
Enhanced 9-1-1:
A phone system which displays the phone number and address of the calling party.
State-of-the-Art Mapping:
The CAD system is used to track and control information from a detailed geographical map.
The programming includes varied topography which can affect which Fire/EMS units are sent to an incident. The Dispatchers computer terminals display detailed geographic information such as:
- Streets
- Canyons
- Runways
- Railroad tracks
- Rivers
- Lakes
Common locations are also displayed on the map such as:
- Fire stations
- Libraries
- Schools
- High rise buildings
- Shopping malls
- and special access areas such as river rescue locations.
TCSS, CBz
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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They are just a tool in my toolbox. They are an asset when they "work" , when they don't well you better have all of the first hand, knowledge, experience embedded between the earflaps otherwise you are SOL.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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All of the electronic stuff is nice, and we have some version of most of what you discuss, but we also keep paper copies of our map book and a paper copy of the high value/target hazard pre-plans for those times when the electricity is off or the mobile Wi-Fi systems on the rigs are not working.
Our electronic systems have a high level of reliability, but no electronic system has 100% reliability.
Personal knowledge, as Bill says, is great, too. However, I'd rather have a reliable, non-electric reference to support personal knowledge than to rely 100% on fallible human memory.
After all, the map binder doesn't get tired, hungry, thirsty, cold, hot, distracted...
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We kept all the 3 ring binder map books on the rigs too. Our problem is the wireless cards have areas that lose service.
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I forgot that you guys are out in the boonies. :-)
Another good reason to have a non-electronic backup data set.
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