APCO’s Project 43 initiative to focus on PSAP operation in next-gen 911 environment

With this in mind, the Project 43 working group examining staffing will try to determine the staffing levels needed to support a PSAP’s transition to 911, Poarch said. Not only will the staffing working group consider the amount of staff needed in a NG911 environment, it will seek to identify new skill sets and training that PSAP employees must have to handle the new multimedia inputs, he said.

“There’s been some work already done on that. It’s not our in intent to duplicate other groups’ work,” Poarch said. “But it’s certainly our intent to take the work that other groups have done and look at it holistically as we focus solely on what all of this will do and the impact it will make on PSAPs.”

Announced last month, the Project 43 effort will be led by Steve Proctor, executive director for the Utah Communications Authority and a past president of APCO. A call for working-group members is slated to be distributed this week, and the working groups are expected to begin meeting on April 1, Poarch said.

APCO officials plan to unveil its Project 43 report in August 2017 at the annual APCO national conference, which will be conducted in Denver, Poarch said. When this report is completed, APCO will determine whether it needs to develop standards to address the operational challenges that PSAP will face in an NG911 environment, he said.

“We’re going to let the working groups work their scopes and come back with recommendations,” Poarch said. “To the extent that there’s standards work that comes out of this, then we’ll undertake that after the report’s delivered.

“It’s premature for me now to say that there definitely will be standards, although I would envision that—when you’re looking at all of the new technologies and information flow—there likely will be standards that ultimately come out of this work.

“We recognize that PSAPs will want standard and have standards. We’re going to look at what’s in place now and what needs to be developed and move as quickly as we can to provide a complete body of work to help the PSAP managers and directors around the country understand what they’re going to be facing and how best to deal with it.”