A major overhaul of the Owensboro-Daviess County 911 dispatch software will be complete and ready to use Tuesday. Featuring both innovative programs and next-generation alarm monitoring, the upgrades are designed to help make the community safer and assist first response agencies.
Paul Nave, 911 center director, said it’s been a two-year process to upgrade their Computer Aided Dispatch System (CAD), and there are countless new features designed to keep safety at the forefront of monitoring the community.
The city and county police and fire departments all use the CAD.
Nave said the new tech allows for proximity dispatching, which will recommend the closest unit versus simply alerting patrol sector. They also can use integrated call processing software to triage calls more efficiently. Additionally, officers will be able to search records from the patrol car.
“All these things that we’ve added for the patrolmen is going to make a difference when they’re making judgment calls on the incident,” Nave said. “The public won’t see any difference in making calls, but will see a difference in efficiently getting information to responders.”
Nave said one of the biggest upgrades is installing ASAP to PSAP along with the CAD overhaul. That is a service that processes information from alarm monitoring stations needing emergency dispatch.
The local 911 dispatch center will be the first in the state to use that software.
“We’ll be the first in the state to implement ASAP to PSAP within our CAD system,” Nave said. “So as soon as a burglar alarm is triggered at a business that partners with ASAP to PSAP, it will automatically come into the 911 system as an incident event. Then we can dispatch accordingly as soon as the call comes in, so there’s not a delay and relay of calls. The middle man is cut out and we dispatch a call within seconds.
He added, “It’s phenomenal technology. And it’s designed so that if our system is down, then it alerts the alarm company so they can call in here.”
The County first response agencies are also planning to move to a new radio system in mid-spring.
The City already uses the P25 radio system, and the County will finish migrating to that system next year. When they do so, however, the County will be losing contact with other surrounding areas like Henderson County which uses a different system.
In order to stay in proper communication for incidents near county lines, Daviess and Hancock agencies are in the process of signing an agreement to allow them to be in contact when situations do arise.
