E&MU: GPS Helps Guide First Responders

By Stephen Bennett, Contributing Writer

This story appears in the July/August 2011 issue of Equipment & Maintenance Update, a supplement to the July 4 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

When lives hang in the balance, the route to an emergency must be clear — and clearly communicated — to first responders. For firefighters and emergency medical technicians responding to such calls, getting lost isn’t an option. That’s where computer-aided dispatch systems come in. They incorporate Global Positioning System devices, digital maps and routing software to calculate the fastest route.

Firefighters and ambulance drivers may strive to know their turf like the backs of their hands, but communities change and go through building booms. Memorizing networks of new streets isn’t the ideal approach to emergency response.

The best route might not always be obvious. For example, because emergency vehicles are authorized to exceed speed limits, a CAD system could chart a route along streets that lend themselves to higher speeds. It also can adjust to street closures caused by flooding or fallen trees.

Further, as municipalities look for ways to trim budgets, more public safety agencies are supporting each other in mutual-aid agreements. Aid agreements can include several agencies, cover a whole county or more and sometimes extend into a neighboring state, increasing the chances that first responders may be driving through unfamiliar areas.

CAD systems are designed to serve multiple agencies so that all dispatchers can see and share the same information; this supports the efficiency of mutual and automatic aid agreements.

“There’s a big push for agencies to work together, share resources,” said Tyler Riddell, marketing director for TriTech Software Systems, a San Diego company that supplies public safety agencies with CAD systems. In the county of San Diego, Riddell said, three dispatch centers manage calls for 14 agencies based in various communities.

Besides routing, these dispatch systems are designed to be integrated with other databases so that they can provide an abundance of useful information to responders en route to a fire or an accident: details about the size and construction of the building on fire; whether a fire or accident involves hazardous materials; information on the medical condition of injured people.

This related information is transmitted wirelessly, appearing on a laptop screen for a partner in the passenger seat to read.

“That eliminates tons of radio traffic,” said Lt. David Belknap of the Austin, Texas, Fire Department, which uses a product from TriTech Software Systems.

Deputy Chief Robert Strahan, of the Greenfield, Mass., Fire Department, said he looks forward to the benefits of such data sharing after the department installs a CAD system from Spillman Technologies Inc., Salt Lake City. The department, like many others, has firefighting plans for major buildings in its jurisdiction; the plans can be integrated into the dispatch system, Strahan said.

Two vendors, when asked the cost of their systems, said there were too many variables involved with each customer to give a ballpark figure. Scott Schuster, logistics officer in the North Las Vegas Fire Department, estimated the per-vehicle cost at $20,000 for a package that includes an annual subscription to the software, software updates, the GPS unit, a laptop and a monthly cellular fee.

Federal, state and municipal grants are available to help public safety agencies and first responders afford the systems. TriTech presented a webinar in which a grant writer advised departments how to apply for funding. Information is available on the TriTech website, www.tritech.com.

The vehicles in the Austin Fire Department are equipped with Sierra Wireless modems with built-in GPS units. The TriTech software is installed in Panasonic Toughbooks mounted in the cabs. Austin’s fire department is made up of 45 stations and has aid agreements with 11 other fire departments in the same county. Those other departments also use TriTech, Belknap said. He estimated that 130 fire trucks in the dozen departments are equipped.

If there are many vehicles from different stations that conceivably could respond to an emergency, the system automatically calculates and compares the response time for each and identifies the top choice and all the others in order of travel time.

The results are presented to dispatchers in a list and also on a map display. Dispatchers do a “sanity check” — a quick review to ensure the recommendation makes sense — before giving a go-ahead on the preferred vehicle and route, Belknap said. The system has reduced response times compared with its predecessor because the earlier system would always dispatch a vehicle within the coverage area in which the emergency occurred, even if the vehicle had to travel from one side of the coverage area to the other. With the CAD system, a vehicle in a neighboring coverage area is dispatched if it is closer.

In the Austin department, driver training for the system typically occurs in three sessions, Belknap said, beginning with a three-hour class, then a follow-up of 60 to 90 minutes that repeats much of the initial material and finally an online session that includes an interactive PowerPoint presentation.

In cities that have grown rapidly over the years, updating the digital maps is critical.

To facilitate such updating, CAD systems often are designed to integrate with a geographic information system, a type of mapping software. The TriTech program, for example, works with Esri, a Redlands, Calif.-based supplier of mapping software that allows users to update maps for their own use. In Austin, city employees update the maps continuously, Belknap said, including information such as speed limits and one-way streets, in an effort to ensure that the computer-aided dispatch remains comprehensive and accurate.

Further, geographic information systems allow the overlaying of various kinds of data. For example, Brian Stearns, public safety segment manager with DeLorme, Yarmouth, Maine, another company that creates and markets a CAD system, said utility companies can apply an overlay showing locations of utility poles and transformers.

Stearns said this is particularly useful after natural disasters such as hurricanes, which could disable cellular transmission as well as destroy the more basic navigation tools, such as street signs.

To further help keep digital maps up to date, the DeLorme GPS unit has a tracker log that detects when a vehicle is traveling a new, unmapped road; it automatically draws a new line on the digital map so that the routing program can incorporate that street in its calculations.

More is to come. Ed Bean, director of marketing for VisionAir Inc., Castle Hayne, N.C., a CAD system provider, said that “next-generation 911” technology is evolving and will enable dispatch centers to receive text messages, images and video sent by 911 callers using smart phones. Dispatchers, he said, will be able to transmit those materials to responders’ vehicles so that emergency personnel can be still better prepared for what awaits them at the scene.

Stephen Bennett is a freelance writer in New Milford, Conn.