The City's Fire/EMS 9-1-1 Computer System

In the past, the Dispatch Center relied solely on phones and radios to get emergency crews on the road. Computers have changed the world of dispatching. The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department utilizes a state-of-the-art $2.8 million Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system.

The CAD system allows the 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 contains the Tritech Software product, VisiTrack Explorer, used to track and control information from a detailed geographical map.

The City of San Diego has 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.