IamResponding.com reaches landmark
DeWitt, N.Y.–based IamResponding.com, a company that offers a Web-based platform to map first-responder staffing and response, announced that its application is being used by more than 75,000 emergency personal.
The system tracks when and where on-call personnel are responding to emergency incidents, said Daniel Seidberg, the company’s president. He said the Web platform is used by career, combination and volunteer fire departments that rely on out-of-station personnel for any portion of their emergency response. It offers two-way communications — instead of the one-way communication offered with pagers— to let personnel know they must report to the station. He said chiefs using pagers to run operations complained they lacked information about the number of personnel available and their ETAs.
“No one ever knew if anyone was coming, how many people were coming and where they were coming from,” Seidberg said. “That’s where a lot of time was lost in the system. Our website was designed to address and fill that gap — and eliminate that time loss.”
The system works by assigning departments a unique toll-free number. Department members program the number into their speed-dial function. When they receive a page, members hit a speed-dial button and go to the scene. Then, incident commanders log on to the Web interface and view via a monitor at the station or in vehicles — anywhere with Internet access — the names of those responding, which direction they are headed and the estimated ETA to the scene, Seidberg said. Iamresponding.com hosts all of the data.
“The departments know literally in seconds whether they are getting a full crew out, or not,” she said. “If they aren’t, then they are able to do second activations or request mutual aid much sooner.”
The system was developed in 2007, but is updated bimonthly, Seidberg added. The newest feature is duty-scheduling, which shows the name of personnel, their assigned duties and their locations.
“So members can do all their scheduling online for their duty crew,” he said. “Even for the departments that don’t do traditional scheduling, it lets volunteers notify the station of their availability or unavailability.”
It costs $800 annually for a 1-year subscription, Seidberg said.
For more information on communications for public safety, attend these sessions at IWCE in Las Vegas, March 7-11, 2011.
