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New 911 software gives dispatchers an eye in the sky
Catonsville Times | July 22 2004
For one unsuspecting juvenile playing hooky from school in June, a routine phone call by a neighbor turned into a successful test of upgrades to the county's 911 center.
A woman saw the boy wandering through the back yard of a neighbor who lives behind her and called the emergency number.
Normally, this type of call is tricky to handle because most people do not know the addresses of the homes behind them, making it difficult to send police quickly to an exact location.
But on this particular day, operators were able to quickly identify the home and dispatch police by using a new computer mapping system and the address of the caller as a starting point.
"I don't think it was a hardened criminal," Tammy Price, a call taker at the center, said of the boy. "He was just some kid going to hang out at his girlfriend's house." In this case, Price and trainee Chezmarie Ross used the new mapping system to pinpoint the address for police.
The software used to locate the truant overlays aerial photographs on maps to give operators a visual reference that can be used to augment a caller's description and provide information that can be relayed to police and firefighters.
Price and Ross used it to identify the exact house being described by asking if the home were to the right or left of the caller's home and how many houses up.
In some cases, an operator can use fixtures such as swimming pools or sheds that are on the property and visible in the photographs as a guide.
Ross said there was a certain "gee-whiz" factor to using the software in resolving the call.
"I know that caller was thinking, 'How did she know that?" Ross said.
Neither Price nor Ross had been formally trained on the system, which was only days old at the time.
"It's pretty intuitive," said Price, who is a self-described technology enthusiast.
Later, when they were trained on the system, they did what every operator does the first time - they punched in their own addresses.
When the upgrades to the 911 center are completed in September, operators will not only be able to see the numbers of callers using cell phones but will be able to pinpoint the calls to within 160 to 330 feet as mandated by federal standards.
Officials at the center say the upgrades will help them in assisting county residents.
"Sometimes people call us (on a cell phone), and they do not necessarily know where they are," said Marie Whisonant, chief of the 911 center. "Sometimes they are able to describe an area because they live there, and they know it, but it means nothing to us. It's all relative based on what the caller is thinking."
The Phase II upgrades, which in- clude mapping software, are part of a $1 million upgrade to the county's 911 system.
Money for the upgrade comes from a 25-cent increase to the surcharge for land lines and cell phones, approved by the County Council earlier this year. The previous surcharge in the county was 50 cents. The county also receives some money from the statewide 911 fee.
Previously, under Phase I, operators could see the phone number of incoming cell calls and the location of the tower that was transmitting the call.
One cell tower covers an area slightly larger than 28 square miles. By using the mapping software to enhance the Phase I service, operators were able to reduce the search area to a little more than 9 square miles.
"It's a rare occasion that you'll ever need this. Most people can tell you where they are," said Scott Whitney, executive director of the state Emergency Numbers System Board.
Whisonant said the new system will help take some of the guesswork out of finding cell-phone callers.
That work, Price said, sometimes involves using some deductive skills.
Price said in one instance a man was involved in a car accident. Injured and disoriented, the man called 911 and stumbled into a nearby wooded area.
Police eventually were able to find the man after Price was relayed to police that she could hear sirens in the background. The noises helped police narrow the search area, and the man was located.
The upgrades, known as Phase II, will take advantage of satellite technology to locate callers to the emergency number.
Most jurisdictions across the country are required to have Phase II service in operation by 2005.
Currently, Anne Arundel, Talbot, Harford, Montgomery and St. Mary's counties are using the tracking system, according to Whitney.
Baltimore, Charles, Kent, Wicomico, Cecil, Somerset, Caroline, Calvert, Howard, Dorchester, Carroll, Washington and Frederick counties and Baltimore City are working on the Phase II system.
Ray Windisch, a project manager at the 911 center, said some cell callers expressed concern about "Big Brother" knowing their every move, even before the addition of Phase II 911 service.
Call takers, he said, will only be able to locate calls to the 911 center and will not be able to randomly pinpoint anyone with a cell phone.
"That's a misconception," he said.
