A Better Way

All of this might have been avoided if the two PSAPs involved in this event had the ability to share data and access up-to-date live data feeds provided by data stewards. Traditionally, PSAPs have relied on street-centerline and address-point information generated by state and local departments of transportation to dispatch law enforcement, fire and emergency medical service (EMS) responders. Unfortunately, this information is dated the moment that it is downloaded into the agency’s computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system; the longer the amount of time between downloads, the more dated and less useful the information becomes.

A better approach would be to establish a live data feed between the department of transportation and the PSAP. An appliance would be installed at every PSAP that captures the feed every minute, every quarter hour, every hour—whatever makes sense for that agency—and immediately updates the PSAP’s GIS dataset, so the most-current information always is available to 911 telecommunicators.

For such an approach to work, the DOT must publish its data each time it is updated and automatically push the update to each PSAP that is interconnected to the DOT’s servers. Once the updated dataset is cached in the PSAP’s CAD system, it will have the most current data. Even if the data connection between the PSAP and DOT is lost for a period of time, the data will be only hours or days old, rather than weeks or months, as was the case with the traditional approach to data maintenance.

Because access to view this data is available to the general public—for instance, all of it is available in Google Maps—security measures do not dictate that it be transported over the agency’s secure Emergency Services IP Network (ESInet). Rather, the DOT’s data feed could be transported over the commercial Internet. This is advantageous because street-centerline and address-points data would unnecessarily consume ESInet bandwidth that otherwise could be reserved for the agency’s life-safety mission.

More importantly, the Internet reaches data providers, PSAPs and backup facilities currently not on an ESInet. Also, for those PSAPs that are connected to the ESInet, the Internet could serve as a backup pathway to this data should access to the public-safety network be impaired. 

In a geospatial data exchange environment, each PSAP that is capable of receiving live data feeds can catalog all of the up-to-date information that is available regionally for later retrieval, without having to check for updates or contact a specific data steward. That means critical information needed concerning a location—even if it is across county and even state boundaries—would be accessible at a moment’s notice.

However it occurs, it is imperative that 911 telecommunicators are able to access accurate addressing data about a neighboring jurisdiction at any time, because they often find themselves fielding calls from such jurisdictions that are sent to them in error, as was the case with Shannell Anderson.

The street-centerline and address-point data maintained by the DOT is only one critical dataset that needs to be updated and automatically disseminated to PSAPs in real time. For instance, public works—working with the fire department—maintains  the fire-hydrants data layer, which includes water pressure and flow information. Such data would be critical for incident commanders to have when rolling up to a skyscraper fire; for instance, knowing which hydrant has enough water pressure to reach the top of a 30-story building would be crucial information.   

In addition, the planning or building department, as well as the tax assessor’s office, could maintain address and property boundary data. Meanwhile, law enforcement would be responsible for data related to emergency service zones (ESZs), which establish response boundaries based both on geography and response type.

A mind-boggling amount of data is updated every day. For instance, the DOT might launch a road-paving project that will close a road for 30 days, or public works might have to close a lane on another road in order to perform a water-main repair. At best, these scenarios could create traffic-congestion nightmares; at worst, they might delay the arrival of an ambulance carrying a critically ill or injured patient to an emergency room. Live data feeds would keep PSAPs abreast of such developments, which would have a profound effect on emergency response.   

The data stewards who work for the DOT, public works, et al, need to understand that the data they create and maintain is critical to the life-safety mission. This is a counter-intuitive way for them to think, so an educational effort needs to be implemented that will help them to understand their incredibly important role in emergency response—because that mission matters so much, so does their work.

This educational effort would be accomplished best by the PSAPs, but they too often fall victim to old, silo-oriented perspectives that prevent them from thinking of the data stewards as being part of the solution, and that building a relationship with the data stewards will result in more-accurate data being provided in a more timely manner.

Meanwhile, the data stewards need to understand that the street-centerline data they create ultimately will be used to dispatch police, fire and EMS to any number of live-and-death situations—and if certain data standards aren’t met, people most certainly will die.

People like Shanell Anderson.

Robert Horne is a communications consultant for Mission Critical Partners, Inc. (www.mcp911.com), a public-safety communications consulting firm headquartered in Port Matilda, Pennsylvania. He can be emailed at [email protected].