Every community has unique public safety needs, and one of administrators' most challenging tasks is finding low-cost, high-quality solutions. Powell County (Montana) Sheriff Scott Howard did just that when he chose to overhaul the county's dispatch center to a 911 public safety answering point (PSAP).

The community's characteristics include the rugged, rural Montana terrain; a sparse, mostly elderly population; and the Montana State Penitentiary. Howard wanted to make responses to the prison safer, to locate residents who prefer to call the agency's administrative line instead of 911 and to increase patrol response times by making dispatchers' jobs more efficient.

Working with a local computer network solutions company, InfoMine of the Rockies Inc., Howard implemented the pc/psap Intelligent E-911 Workstation, offered by InfoMine strategic partner XTEND Communications Corp. XTEND has focused on call center applications and their enhancement for 38 years. "Most public safety agencies' telecommunications systems are proprietary, so telecommunications is one of their major expenses," says Donna Messineo, vice president of product management for pc/psap. "XTEND is part of a broader effort to deconstruct E-911's proprietary nature. By programming software that works with agencies' existing hardware, we enable cost savings."

Three features make pc/psap ideal for many small and rural agencies like Powell County's, according to Phillip Curtiss, InfoMine's chief technology officer.

• Like all XTEND products, it's software based. "This means it runs with whatever hardware is available, so an agency doesn't have to invest in a new, proprietary PSAP system and then be stuck upgrading it over the long-term," Curtiss says. "pc/psap also makes possible replacing an entire PSAP system at only the cost of an upgrade."
• It's Voice over IP (VoIP) capable. Now that all land lines connect to 911 trunks, a push is underway to make wireless phones provide their callers' location information to dispatchers. However, PSAP administrators don't want to repeat their experience with the high cost of installing 911 features. Thus, an already compatible software solution lowers costs even further.
• It integrates 911 and administrative lines. "Most large cities separate 911 and administrative lines, so some dispatchers handle only 911 or only administrative calls," Curtiss explains. "However, in small communities, dispatchers handle both responsibilities on one phone; Powell County, for instance, uses a four-line business phone. Also, elderly residents often prefer calling administrative lines because they're not used to 911, or don't think their problem is a true emergency. Dispatchers thus need a way to use caller ID to get those callers' locations."

InfoMine's role was to integrate pc/psap with all dispatch systems, including the agency's records management, mapping, state criminal justice information network and the Montana Supreme Court video-conferencing systems. "Because pc/psap depends on these systems to work, it demands accuracy," Curtiss says. "That's why so much integration is required." He estimates this process took six to eight weeks and required no downtime.

The first step in the PSAP overhaul was a new private branch exchange (PBX) switch. Although Messineo says pc/psap could have worked easily with older legacy systems, Powell County needed something more up to date. Howard selected an AVAYA PBX switch as the most cost-effective and functional solution.

Then XTEND worked with InfoMine to integrate pc/psap with the AVAYA switch at the manufacturer level. This way, pc/psap effectively bridged the gap between the county's public 911 network and private telephone companies' switching systems.

With the AVAYA switch integrated into the agency's data network, a computer sits between phone and switch, handling all calls. This is where the cost saving lies, because as Curtiss explains, integration releases the agency from having to use a proprietary telephone or hardware interface system.

Further lowering costs is the use of the Telephony Application Programming Interface (TAPI) open standard. When a resident dials 911, the switch sends a TAPI message through the network to a dispatcher's workstation running the TAPI-based pc/psap. The dispatcher clicks a button on screen to open the line and the switch then communicates with the workstation. The software then matches the caller's phone number with data from a subscriber database, which Messineo says was built using the county's Master Street Address Guide (MSAG). The entries are based on the phone's physical location as well as its owner's mobility.

The pc/psap software emphasizes multi-level system stability. Redundancy is built into the system starting at the call center and expanding outward. In Powell County, for instance, the subscriber database is replicated on each dispatcher's workstation, so if the server is compromised, dispatchers have access to the information they need. When the server comes back up, the workstations automatically synchronize with it. Another backup alternative is to copy databases to DVDs or off-site servers. As Messineo points out, "Ensuring data survivability and integrity has become more necessary, and common in the industry, since 9/11."

One of the most important things pc/psap does for Powell County dispatchers is to allow unique entries for the penitentiary in the automatic location information (ALI) database, within the broader county ALI database. In other words, instead of appearing as another structure, such as a house or school, the prison shows individual locations, including fine detail and even photographs, to help dispatchers pinpoint an incident's source. (Curtiss notes that XTEND also makes a product called Enterprise Alert for active shooter and like situations.) Advanced tools enable dispatchers to view only the prison campus, only the county or both together — depending on the incident's nature.

Curtiss describes the pc/psap software as "intuitive," because it not only duplicates a telephone's appearance on the computer screen, but adds features to that look and feel. For instance, the screen flashes for an incoming call. When a caller is put on hold, the on-screen line turns a different color, and the caller's address appears. This makes it easy for dispatchers to prioritize calls. "Say there's a disturbance at a truck stop and multiple callers are reporting it," explains Curtiss. "The dispatcher has only to look at the list of addresses to determine the incident's probable severity."

This task is made easier with pc/psap's ability to integrate with mapping and computer aided dispatch (CAD) systems. "CAD is map-centric, so when dispatchers click on the map, they can see where the caller is located," says Messineo. And, although the system doesn't include automatic vehicle location (AVL), it does allow dispatchers to click on a map to locate the patrol officers nearest an incident.

Another key feature is pc/psap's ability to centralize or decentralize call-taker functions as needed. "Centralization combines both functional call receiving and geographic dispatching duties," says Messineo. "Decentralization means one person receives calls and the other dispatches." Decentralization also allows for a dynamic PSAP. Powell County's AVAYA switch uses IP telephony, allowing other PSAPs to join the network and answer calls, even from remote locations. Thus, if necessary, dispatchers could evacuate their central station and redeploy elsewhere, even at a mobile command center. Or, as Curtiss points out, if a county and a municipal police department need to coordinate operations, the XTEND network allows multiple entities on one system, rather than duplicating it in each location. Messineo adds pc/psap is scalable, so that in areas experiencing population explosions, agencies can add new 911 subscribers — and "agents" or dispatchers — as needed.

Other agencies are taking advantage of pc/psap's versatility. Examples include integration with alarm companies' systems, and with existing video streams and Web cams. Such integrations enable certain events, like burglary alarms or traffic accidents, to trigger automatic 911 calls to police. "Our software can empower the dispatcher to see what's happening," says Messineo. "For instance, in El Paso [Texas], traffic light cameras can be manipulated, so when a motor vehicle accident occurs, a dispatcher can maneuver the camera to see how bad it is."

The VoIP capability isn't only important to civilians, but also potentially to officers. Although the Washoe County, Nevada, school system, whose 61 elementary schools, 15 middle schools and 12 high schools are linked to the police department's XTEND system via central consoles that school police can use to call for assistance, Messineo says VoIP could allow them to implement "field" use. Officers could then use mobile phones or PDAs to connect to the 911 system. Thus, if the school were in lockdown, officers could call in no matter where they were located.

Powell County is heading toward an E-911 system which Curtiss says will make better use of features such as the integrated 911/administrative lines. The reason the county didn't immediately go with E-911 was that trunks were not available until mid-May and under state law, MSAGs must be 95 percent verified. Powell County's is now 99 percent verified. "The only thing worse than no E-911 is a system with errors," Curtiss says.

Reverse 911, or an Emergency Notification System (ENS), is another possible direction for the county. Although the sheriff's office tried to work with the Montana Department of Corrections to generate funds for an ENS, it was too costly. For now, dispatchers can still use pc/psap to make manual notifications. In the event of a prison break, for instance, dispatchers who have an idea of an escapee's direction can draw a polygon on the corresponding map, then find resident information. Likewise, following a chemical spill, dispatchers could use the map and the subscriber database to plot plume spread.

With federal funding for law enforcement drying up, law enforcement agencies need cost-effective solutions that will help them respond to their citizens' 21st century needs. Software solutions like pc/psap allow these agencies to work with their communities' unique needs and still control costs.

Christa Miller, www.christammiller.com, is a freelance writer based in southern Maine. She specializes in public safety issues.