The global use of social media and the adoption of smart phone technology is having a tremendous impact on both 911 and 311 services. Texting of incident data is becoming common and the ability of on-the-ground information transfer of photo and video data is emerging. The direct result on 911 and 311 is a greatly…
Washington County will soon have a dispatch center that will complete a $77 million upgrade of the emergency radio communications network that voters approved in 2016. Officials broke ground Thursday, Nov. 14, on a new center for the Washington County Consolidated Communications Agency on a 6-acre site in Hillsboro, next to the Five Oaks West…
Emergency response to extreme events that impact public safety, both natural (tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes), and man-made (terrorism, train derailment) in the past several years has created a database of best practices and design guidelines for public safety facilities. The design of consolidated emergency operations centers and communications dispatch facilities / E-911 PSAPs have traditionally been…
Besides the three-digit 911 emergency number, America’s telephone companies and the FCC have adopted other three-digit numbers including 311. It was first implemented by the Baltimore (MD) Police Department on October 2, 1996 to handle non-emergency police calls. The 311 number was then approved for nationwide use by the FCC on February 19, 1997. The…