Your Dispatch Center

[mark440]

Would you mind telling me about your Centers please? What size population? How many Dispatchers (total and on duty at one time)? How large of area in miles? How many agencies? How many calls roughly a year? What are you considered, Rural/Urban/Metro? We have 16 dispatchers, 3 on 18 hours a day, 2 for 6 hours a day. We serve about 95,000 people. We answer about 250,000 calls a year. We dispatch for 5 Law Enforcement agencies, 12 Fire Departments, 1 Ambulance, 3 Animal control agencies, numerous Parks and Rec, Fish and Game, and the other norms. Our County is about 1,500 miles square.

Thanks!

*Mark

[HOTDOG]

Our dispatch center serves approximatly 50,000 citizens, dispatches 15 fire departments, 3 law enforcement agencies, 4 rescue squads and 1 special police unit (ac). We answer around 25,000 calls per year utilizing 2 dispatchers per shift - total of 13 dispatchers. Our county is roughly 600 square miles. Our center is really just getting started as we have been taking calls for 3 years now. We have picked up several agencies so the 25,000 calls is an estimate for this year. We are considered rural with a few urban area in our area.

[BFD196]

Our dispatch center handles the entire city, of about 130,000. It dispatches police, fire and EMS. EMS runs on the same radios as fire, while police are seperate. There are usually 2 radio operators for fire/ems, and at least 2 for police. Then 4 call takers(not positive on that number), and the supervisor. Altogether they probably send over about 150,000 calls a year, maybe more, for police, fire and EMS. Our downtown is a city, with many 10-20 story office buildings. That areas is covered by a paid fire department, as you travel north, it becomes almost all residential, and the fire departments switch to combination, 2 guys on at all times. Up here, it`s less hectic, and just nicely residential. Farther north, things are very spread out, and there are a lot of woods. Our city`s got a bit of everything, so the dispatch center is very busy.

[EC116]

I'm a former dispatcher. We have 10 dispatchers total with two on each shift, working 8 hour shifts (in ideal situations, most of the time we are short on dispatchers)We dispatch for one police department and two fire departments. One dispatcher handles the police side and the other 911 and fire/rescue side. The admin. lines are picked up by whoever has a free hand when they ring. We also have a dispatcher that works the front desk on the day shift Monday through Friday to handle the people coming into the station, court paperwork, etc. (again ideally, if we are up to full staff)

We are a small suburban city in the suburbs of Detroit, about 7 square miles. We handle around 40,000 police calls a year and about (rough guess) 10,000 fire calls, including medicals. I'm not exactly sure what the population is, but i know we have quite a few people. We are pretty urban, but we also have a few wooded areas and get the occasional wildlife complaints; deer running in the middle of downtown, ect. ect.

We normally have about 10 cars on the road each shift. More then that during the day with the DB, but they don't do much anyway. We don't have a separate LEIN person like most places,so we run all the paperwork for traffic stops, arrests, etc. ourselves.

Most of the time it's ok, but once in a while it can get pretty hectic and we wish we had another person in their with us....

[911WACKER]

The center I work at does about 80-100 incidents per day, not sure what the actual calls taken is. We always have 2 dispatchers on, 3-11 monday thru saturday has three people. We use logisis cad, have E-911 but the county still uses the rural route address system (in process of updating to # address's for all now).

We answer for 25 fire departments, 11 ambulance companies, 3 of which are full time paid staff, we also have 9 police departments as well as sheriff office, probation, and several others county offices that we answer for on off hours.

[MrJim911]

My agency is handles Police/Fire and EMS for 4 agencies. We are in the Chicago burbs but are more urban than metro. We have a Director, Deputy Director neither of which do radio. One Training Cooridinator, 3 supervisors and 11 dispatchers. We work 5/8's. Same days off all year and we bid by seniority. There is a shift minimum of 3 on at all times during day shift (0715-1515) and evening shift (1515-2315). 2 on during midnight shift (2315-0715). There are exceptions where we sometimes require more, but never less.

We use EMD. Handle about 100,000 calls a year with a population of about 125,000. I think about 275 sq miles which includes the largest fire protection district in Illinois.

[Engine101]

Verdugo Fire Communications handles fire and ems dispatching for Monrovia, Arcadia, Sierra Madre, South Pasadena, San Marino, San Gabriel, Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena
Dispatch is located on the 3rd floor of Glendale Station 21
Verdugo covers a population of 642,000 with an area of 110 square miles
Witin the the system are 33 Station's and 97 pieices of firefigthing apparatus
In the past year Verdugo handles 47,994 incidents


Dispatchers work 12 hour shifts normally from 6:30AM to 6:30PM
There are two dispatchers and on supervisor on duty per shift
All calls are dispatched of Red 4 470.4125
Calls and can also be dispatched VIA Mdt

[ems56]

Our center serves 90,000 people with 27 fire departments, 11 ambulances, 18 police departments, 2 probation depts., game commission, fish commission, dog law, children services, prison, district attorney, and numerous EMA officials. We have 12 full time and 12 part time dispatchers. We work 12 hrs shifts, permanent days or nights. Our work week starts at 3am on Monday and ends the following Monday. Shifts are 7am to 7pm or 7pm to 7am M,T,W,Th,S,S. Fridays are a short day either 4 or 8 hrs depending if you are on days or nights. Basically we have everyother week & weekend off. Here's how it works for my shift: M 12hrs, W 12hrs, Th 12hrs, F 4hrs, S 12hrs, S 12hrs, T 12 hrs, F 4hrs- 80 hrs for 2 wk pay period. Of course, room for any overtime.

[JeepFireNY]

The Rockland County Sheriff's Department Communications division dispatch center serves close to 300,000 in a 174 square mile area. The center dispatches the county's 26 volunteer fire departments resulting in an excess 6,000 fire dispatches a year. The center is connected to NYSPIN (New York State Police Information Network) and NCIC (National Crime Information Center). The center handles the county E911 system as well as receiving calls from local police departments. All automatic fire alarms are run into the center. All consoles at the center are redundant so any dispatcher can handle everything they need to (although things are usually divided).

The center also acts as an EOC for Rockland County as well as handling the Indian Point Nuclear Power plant emergency sirens in the county. The 2 day shifts consist of 3 dispatchers & 1 supervisor while the midnight shift consists of 2 dispatchers & 1 supervisor. The entire division consists of 12 full-time officers & 7 part-time officers.

The fire dispatch is known as "44-Control" while the police county interagency is known as "Radio Headquarters" The center is located in Pomona, NY at the Rockland County Fire Training Center in Rockland County, NY located just north of New York City, across the Hudson River from Westchester County.

[nomad1085]

Originally posted by JeepFireNY
The fire dispatch is known as "44-Control"

AH HA! So your the skip we get on 46.18 in Connecticut. Before I had a scanner with PL, I would have nightmares at night hearing "44 control department 6 signal 10 a telephone alarm...." AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Matt

[Jay911]

We handle a city of ~900,000 (31 stations currently, adding more this year) plus a surrounding Municipal District (county) for which I don't have population info, served by 11 fire stations though; also, two communities about 60 miles away in the mountains. Any given dayshift has 2 fire dispatchers, 3 E/Os (emergency operators) and 1 supervisor. Night shift reduces the E/O count by 1.
Also - we not only do fire dispatch but also are the primary answering point for all 911 calls for those areas (from us, it goes to police, EMS, or back to us for fire).
We dispatch between 100 (on a slow night) and 200 (on one of the busiest days I've seen lately) calls for service every 24 hours. This only includes fire calls, or calls a fire crew has responded to. I'm sure someone somewhere keeps statistics on how many 911 calls we intake, but I don't have that info. I do know we deal with 6,000 "open cellphone" (with no one on the other end) calls per month, and it supposedly approaches 47% of our total 911 call volume.

--j., who speaks only for himself - not officially in any way

[JeepFireNY]

Originally posted by nomad1085



AH HA! So your the skip we get on 46.18 in Connecticut. Before I had a scanner with PL, I would have nightmares at night hearing "44 control department 6 signal 10 a telephone alarm...." AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Matt

HAHA... Dept. 6 with a telephone alarm, bet you heard that about 3 times a day.

[NJFFSA16]

KEE 398.....Four FIVE!

It's not skip....the transmitter is only a short distance from Connecticut. You hear it direct.

Signal 10, brush....signal 10, telephone alarm...!

[nomad1085]

Haha, your right. I always thought it was skip until I found out where it was. I have to get that out of my head now. Gotta love low band. You can hear it 150 miles away, but not on the other side of town.

[JeepFireNY]

Originally posted by NJFFS_A16
KEE 398.....Four FIVE!

It's not skip....the transmitter is only a short distance from Connecticut. You hear it direct.

Signal 10, brush....signal 10, telephone alarm...!

ROFL.... I love that guy!! Its like we have our own radio station here in Rockland. Most of the dispatchers are boring, but that guy keeps things exciting. Remember, its K,Double E - 398

[oatmeal610]

Our dispatch center, Eastern Regional 911, provides E911 services for 23 communities to the east of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County with a combined population of approx. 200,000. We currently dispatch for 8 police departments, 20 fire departments, and 10 EMS agencies. Our center has minimum staffing of 5 persons for 7-3, 6 persons for 3-11, and 4 persons for 11-7; however, additional staffing is provided for weekends. Our positions include 2 police dispatchers, 2 fire dispatchers, one index operator, a shift supervisor, and call takers (when staffing is available, if not, available radio operators answer phones). The majority of our area is suburban, with a wide variety of residential income, from distressed communities to a community with one of the highest paid police departments in the state. We answer approx 250,000 calls a year and handle about 100,000 incidents.

http://www.county.allegheny.pa.us/em...11/eastern.asp

[firetruck32]

We run a comms center for our 450 + stations. We run initial comms for the entire state until local comms in stations can open. We average about 40 calls per day due to the fact that most of our stations are rural and do a small number of calls. We have 2 people on shift with a shift team leader during the day. We do 12 hr shifts in a 4 on 4 off basis.

[1stchief]

Otsego County E911 CTR. We have 9 full time and 3 partime dispatchers. pop. 61,676 with 1,013 sq miles. we answer all 911 hard line calls for the county, and all C911 call fron cell one phones
dispatch for 32 vol fd and 1 career 16 squad 12 1st resp units, sheriffs dept, 2 PD 3 town constables, county highway, public health,
social service, ENCON. We answer all admin lines for the sheriffs dept. Avg. calls per day is 145 emergency and admin. 2 on a shift
24/7/365. A 3rd disp on schedule from 9-5 and 5-1 but if anybody takes off any of the other shifts back to 2 on. all dispatchers are
NYSPIN cert. and EMD cert. can be heard on 46.44 fire and ems 154.235 police. disp 931

[BUGGY5632]

The Ulster County Emergency Communications Center located in Kingston, NY has a staff of 26 full and 7 part-time personnel. We handle E-911 calls for 52 fire departments, 13 rescue squads and 14 police departments, New York State Police and Ulster County Sheriff's Office. Our shifts are split into 3 8hr tours (8-4,4-12,12-8) and special 12 hour shifts as well. We have between 3-6 dispatchers on the day and evening shifts, and 3-4 on the overnight shift. We have 5 radio consoles, 3 call-taker booths, and we are also tied into NYSPIN. We handle radio traffic for 50 of the 52 fire departments, and 11 of the 13 rescue squads. Police traffic is handled by us for E-911 calls only utilizing the closest car concept. All dispatchers are APCO certified in emergency telecommunicator and EMD. Over 69,000 calls were handled by us in 2001, and will go up in 2003 with the possible introduction of Cell 911. We have 195,000 residents occupying 1,150 square miles and 55 miles of the Hudson River. We operate on VHF low for Fire, VHF high for EMS and PD.

[spyder007]

My agency only dispatches for my agency. We are a city of ~600k people. 1,000 cops, 365 fire fighters, and AMR as our ambulance. We have 80 communication center employees with an average of 13 on at a time. We take approx 200,000 911 calls a year. 18 fire stations, 3 police stations, soon to be 4.