bus7821
join:2003-08-07
San Pedro, CA
| reply to funchords
Re: Ehhh-9-1-1 -- Believe it or not, it's a take-it-or-leave-it
I found that a little puzzling, too. My experience is in urban areas, and the overwhelming tendency there is for PSAPs to be self-contained dispatch centers. In one room will be complaint takers and dispatchers for police, fire, and paramedics for one or more cities.
I believe a few fire departments in very large cities have managed to hold out and still make their separate dispatch center the PSAP for the city. If no fire response is required, a call is just transferred to the police dispatch center. |
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marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
| Yeah, we are quite different. Police, fire, and EMS all have different dispatch centers. County police takes all of the calls and then routes them to the correct dispatch center. None of the other dispatch centers take calls directly.
Fire has 44 dispatch centers; EMS technically has 46 (but actually has significantly less than that since two contract ambulance companies are covering multiple ambulance districts); and police has 63 dispatch centers. All the calls though go through county police initially. Yes, our CAD system is a little complicated and our vendor probably hates us. 
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funchords
Hello
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join:2001-03-11
Washington, DC
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| said by marigolds  :our vendor probably hates us. As long as the checks clear, I doubt it.  |
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marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO | As an update, I found out today that tomorrow we will now have 43 fire districts and 64 police districts (though the number of police districts will change again in September).
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bus7821
join:2003-08-07
San Pedro, CA | reply to marigolds
Is complaint entry (into the CAD) done at the county, or at the individual dispatch centers? |
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marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
| said by bus7821 :Is complaint entry (into the CAD) done at the county, or at the individual dispatch centers? Fire is done at the individual dispatch centers. Police is done at the county for some munis, done at the individual dispatch center for others. |
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bus7821
join:2003-08-07
San Pedro, CA
| said by marigolds :Fire is done at the individual dispatch centers. Police is done at the county for some munis, done at the individual dispatch center for others. Wow, they did make it tough on themselves, didn't they? Sounds like a design based on politics rather than functionality. They could have saved a lot of money, initial and ongoing, by having all of the complaint entry at the county.
Where do the old 7 digit emergency numbers ring? And who is the CAD vendor? |
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marigolds
Gainfully employed, finally
Premium,MVM
join:2002-05-13
Saint Louis, MO
| Well, the political structure of St Louis goes back to the civil war, and was heavily influenced by the Jim Crow era (when a whole bunch of cities incorporated solely for the purpose of banning blacks from living in them).
Once you put 91 municipalities into such a small place, cooperation is pretty much impossible.
Police is almost a full cooperation though; it's really only the larger muni departments that do their own entry.
Of course, the city of st louis seceded from the county a long time ago, so their government, as well as all emergency services, are completely separate from the county.
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