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Hi All,

In listening casually to the Colunbia Simulcast while I am at work, I hear many instances where fire and aid units are dispatched through what seems to be electronic selection of recorded words by a human female. By the way, this lady also has recorded all of the words which are put together to provide bus information on the automated metro line.

I, for one, would be very interested in how this dispatch technology works. Is there anyone working for the City of Seattle or a radio shop who could describe this technology for me and any others who might be interested? If so, I would love to hear it.

Thanks much.

_________________
Kevin
K7RX

To sum it up in a nutshell http://www.locution.com

But I retired from the department long before it was even thought of, so
I'd like to hear how it operates from the disptachers side too.

I read up a little bit when they rolled out the product a while back. In a nutshell it's a text to speech program that interfaces with their CAD. Every fire dispatch is given a certain way per department preference. So they have the CAD incident on the screen and it "reads" the address information over the air. We have an automated system called Zetron which send out the fire tones only depending on which unit is recomended. Same sort of thing but more advanced as it "reads" the cad card.

I have heard mixed reviews on the product. Some love it and some HATE it. There still is a person in the dispatch center. This just frees up the dispatcher to dispatch the call while still taking call information. Very helpful in a center in which you are the call reciever and the dispatcher.

I'm sure there is more to this system so this is just my 2 cents worth.

PK

Hi,

Thanks much for this information. I suspected it was something like that but wasn't totally sure.

_________________
Kevin
K7RX

Sounds to me -- it's just another way to automate and get rid of live human being dispatchers. At some point in time -- once everyone has been replaced by a machine -- I wonder WHO will pay the taxes.

Not many FF's in the SFD like the new dispatch. The verbal "Locution" dispatch takes longer than ever to give dispatch information. Thank goodness the verbal portion is not the only way to get alarm information. There is station alerting, personal pagers, printouts, etc.

If you've ever heard a dispatch where Locution gets a little confused, it's pretty comical. It will say: "Engine 5, aid response. Engine 5 aid response. Refer to printout for incident type. Refer to printout for address." Bascially Locution couldn't put the data to voice.

Also when Locution can't say a street designator like "2nd AV Ext. (which is Extension)", it will say, "2nd AV E X T" Pronouncing each letter.

When SFD made the switch to the Nnew computer aided dispatch, they had all sorts of problems with incorrect addressing and units being sent to the wrong areas. They had some pretty significant issues with the master geo-file, which is the file that contains all address ranges, locations, common place names, etc. Many in the Fire Alarm Center were extremely frustrated at the performance initially with the new system.

The Eastside dispatch center (EPSCA) had similar problems when they switched to the same system (prior to SFD). They also used the Tritech CAD system, but the don't have the Locution verbal option. SFD should have looked in to how the switch went for Bellevue.

Lastly, the new CAD and Locution set-up was supposed to help the dispatcher workload at the FAC, but some have said it is more work. And if anyone has followed the recent media coverage regarding the SFD FAC, you know that they failed to meet the King County 911 objectives. They failed to answer 911 calls in a certain amount of time two quarters in a row. King County put them on notice the first time and the second time withheld their portion of the E911 funding for that quarter.

The City of Seattle's response was to cut staffing on E21 (Phinney Ridge) and make that engine a three-person crew and shift the staffing to the fire alarm center.

So you can see that the new CAD set-up didn't really make life easier for the department.

As a tax payer - we should demand that the government provide the services that we pay for and need. Putting a "Robot" in place of a human being as an Emergency Dispatcher is NOT in the publics best interest. It seems the Tactics used by the Seattle FD Dispatchers (A slow-down) have provided the needed results, even if only temporary. It puts a real person in the Fire Alarm Center and saves one more persons job. By taking a firefighter off of a fire rig -- it puts the topic even more in front of the public. Good for them. I hate the idea of "Blue Flu". I think the public has a responsibility to PAY to keep a good Police and Fire Department. And for being well paid - I think that Police and Firefighters should be prevented from walk outs or slow-downs. And with both SPD and SFD - they got what they paid for -- darn good departments. Its time to get rid of the "cost cutter" and "robots" and get back to work.

Hi,

thanks much for that explanation and the information. I have observed some of those things you note and wondered why. Now I understand.

I really appreciate you taking the time to explain the system and its pros and cons.

Take care and thanks again.

_________________
Kevin
K7RX