At each workstation, the index cards have been thrown out and replaced by three high-resolution screens. Five years ago, a call taker would refer to one of the handwritten cards to establish an emergency vehicle's location. Today they can simply glance at the first screen where the PRC CAD provides the location of every vehicle with a color-coded icon on a digital city map. The network supports instant transfer of everything from vital dispatch data to entire case reports, photographs and arrest records. We had no digital communications to speak of, the call stations were awkward and provided limited information and, to top it off, we had police communications in one building and fire communications in two other buildings, all in different sections of the city.
Every system is redundant and secure.
We started by trying to move out of the Stone Age and managed to end up in the 21st century. Other features will have an even more direct impact on saving lives. In 1987, a woman trapped by a fire in a downtown high rise called 911, but help was dispatched to the wrong address, leading to her tragic death. With the ECC, such a mistake would be close to impossible, even if information provided by the victim were inaccurate or they were cut off before they could complete the call. A detailed mapping system automatically pinpoints the location from which the call originated and instantly provides the call taker with accurate visual and address location information.