
A survey of 911 dispatchers reveals the cost of bad technology - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/04/24/a-survey-of-911-dispatchers-reveals-the-horrible-human-cost-of-bad-technology/
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monkmartinez
First responder here. I am a professional Firefighter/EMT in Arizona.

Its not just 911 calls from cell phones, its the whole stack. This will
hopefully illustrate the problems we have;

Last night we were dispatched to an MVA (accident) with injuries. The 911 call
came in from a passer by on a cell phone, but gave the wrong address.

A police officer near by, responded as well. When the officer arrived, he told
Dispatch that the accident was on XYZ st. Dispatch corrected our address on
our MDT (the computer in the Engine) and updated over the radio. We drove to
the intersection, but couldn't find the accident.

I am the driver of the engine, so I ask my Captain if we should just head
south a litter further to gain some elevation and look for lights. This is all
while making appropriate radio transmissions. We drive a little further south
up a small hill and find the Accident. The accident is on the street the
officer said it was on. Dispatch didn't have an updated map that reflected the
connection of two streets and the streets name change. They had dispatched us
to the old intersection.

We were delayed about 4 minutes and the injuries were not serious, thankfully.
However, this is pretty common.

We have two laptops on every truck. We have a brand new digital radio system.
We have a year old CAD (dispatch) software package. We use electronic patient
reporting and transmit full telemetries (patient reports) via a shitty web
app.

Our laptops do not cross pollenate (share data). Our radio system doesn't work
with police unless we coordinate beforehand or activate the MMRS system which
is reserved for homeland security type events. The radio system has all kinds
of other problems, it is fully software defined radio. Our patient data from
the EKG monitors do not talk to the EPCR (electronic patient...) software. Our
EPCR data does not cross pollenate with the shitty web app for transmission to
the hospitals. CAD; Maps are a cluster f __* and its too expensive to use
Google maps apparently. The CAD software has all kinds of bugs for data
extraction Ie. calls are doubled, missing and more.

Believe it or not we have Fire/EMS departments from around the country
visiting us as we are very, very advanced in terms of technology in the
Fire/EMS service. I've made two android apps for our department to use, an
easy SOP reader and a Fire pump calculator. I am actively trying to come up
with solutions to fix our problems via MORE! software...haha

~~~
Zikes
I'd be interested to know exactly why Google Maps would be too expensive. Is
it the licensing of the maps from Google that costs too much, or the
development of new software to use the new map source data?

In the case of the former, I wonder if OpenStreetMap is any better than CAD
Maps' existing map source.

~~~
sgarman
Is it possible to license full offline copies of Google Maps - that would be a
requirement for sure.

~~~
rdl
Google Earth Enterprise.
[http://www.google.com/enterprise/mapsearth/products/earthent...](http://www.google.com/enterprise/mapsearth/products/earthenterprise.html)

This doesn't come with the maps data itself, though.

------
TrainedMonkey
While this does describe a real problem that we want to address, article reads
like surveillance propaganda. I think it reads that way because of strong
implication that cell phone technology is bad because it does not allow
authorities to obtain quick geolocation fix on a cell phone.

~~~
Spooky23
The issue is that GPS is not as accurate as a landline port assignment lookup.
20 years ago, if a toddler dialed 911, the 911 operator knew what building or
floor a call came from.

That's just fundamental. It's not surveillance state stuff.

At one time, this problem was limited to a smaller population of cellphone
users. Most people in one of these horrible car accident situations, etc
didn't have access to a cellphone, so they just died.

Now, landlines are a thing of the past, so calls from office buildings, homes,
etc are coming in without actionable information.

~~~
underscoremark
I think that GPS would be accurate enough, in many cases, like traffic
accidents. However, GPS capabilities require Wireless Phase II, which is not
always available. Otherwise, the location being presented to the PSAP is that
of the cell phone tower.

Speaking on the disappearance of land-lines, another issue is the increase of
VoIP subscribers. Keeping address information up-to-date is the responsibility
of the subscriber. If they take their VoIP service to the cottage, and call
911, emergency service could be dispatched to their home residence instead.

------
rdl
I wish there were a premium 911 smartphone application for the public or maybe
even somewhat-trained members of the public.

Rather than a single number to call, show me the resources available in my
local area, in realtime -- distances to a level I/II trauma facility, hazmat,
fire, police, tactical, etc. (some of this might be restricted for security
reasons, but "infinite" resources like a police hq or hospital wouldn't be).

I specifically want to be able to report a traffic accident in e.g. Pleasanton
and get connected directly to CHP, rather than going through local PD first.

Voice is great, but I'd also like to get updates on ETA, and the ability to
send more accurate information to the first responders than goes through 911
dispatchers -- specifically, the person on scene should see exactly what is
being sent to the first responders to check it for accuracy. (maybe not so
much in security/police, but in fire/medical) Sending photos and essentially a
map could be really helpful.

The easiest commercial market is probably regulated-industry safety
professionals (power plants, chemical plants, etc.) which have unique needs.
One option might be deploying it within radius of these facilities to the
general public so they can get updates on things like gas releases or
accidents.

The longer the travel time between first responders and victims, the more
useful this would be. In Palo Alto, you're going to get police/fire/medical
quite quickly. In a poor city like Detroit, calls get triaged, and in actually
remote areas, even more so -- yet, people often do have smartphones and at
least 3G now.

It would also be a big win in markets where private ambulances and other
options exist (i.e. most of Asia); knowing that you can get a private
ambulance for $30, or take a taxi for $10, or wait 2h for state services,
would be really useful.

~~~
monkmartinez
Resources. My city has a massive problem with retention of IT folk and I
suspect this to be the case in lots of other municipalities. Your ideas are
awesome, but we can't even manage to get laptops that sit next to each other
to communicate and/or share data. There is no comprehensive suite of Fire/EMS
software and hardware that I am aware of. It is 100% piece meal and the people
making the decisions don't really understand technology.

~~~
rdl
Right -- the solution (I think) would be to sell this as a packaged service,
initially to the well-funded "house fire departments" at industrial
facilities, and then maybe to places like airport departments, and to
geographic agencies with funding. Minimizing the local customizations and
local IT support. (I am pretty familiar with the nuclear plant systems, and
with military and military airfield systems, but I think they're fairly
similar to most profitable/regulated/compliant industrial sites like major
refineries.)

Essentially drchrono or practice fusion for EMS/fire/police/etc -- less
featureful and customizable than the existing solutions, but vastly easier to
deploy.

~~~
preetnation
rdl, we're working on this right now, starting at college campuses and
corporate campuses. We've got a yc interview this weekend, so your feedback is
hugely helpful.

[https://angel.co/bluelight-1](https://angel.co/bluelight-1)

~~~
monkmartinez
Are you interfacing with the EMS side public safety directly? Ultimately,
Government public safety agencies override corporate and industrial safety
personnel from a NIMS, ICS point of view. You can have the best intentions of
the world, but if the data isn't getting to the people who matter... the point
is moot when seconds count. Most campuses and industrial complexes in my city
rely on municipal Fire/EMS over municipal police. That is, they have their own
security forces or police department and do not employ paramedics and fire
fighters.

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frik
It should be the other way!

Smartphones should have an emergency button. Pressing the button should
automatically call 911 (or 112) and speaking using a Text-To-Speech _TTS_
software (Siri, etc.) the name of the phone owner and the GPS coordinate,
street address, etc.

This technology is already built in e.g. Ford cars (using Nuance/Microsoft
speech technology, using automatic Bluetooth to call via the phone) - at the
same time as the airbag goes off the car calls the emergency number and
speaks.

And there are a number of (smart)phones that have an inbuilt emergency button
that calls or SMS a predefined (but editable) number (like relatives).

~~~
jessriedel
You don't need a special emergency button. It wouldn't be hard for the phone
to provide that info to emergency dispatchers whenever 911 was dialed at the
same time as it was connection the call.

~~~
coryking
Lets say you just had a stroke or something. I honestly can't imagine how hard
it would be to dial 911 on a modern touch screen phone if you are mentally or
physically incapacitated.

Seriously, it it kind of scares the crap out of me visualizing how I'd dial
for an emergency if shit hit the fan and for whatever reason I wasn't my
normal self.

~~~
jessriedel
The number of people every year who are so incapacitated that they can't dial
911 yet are just capacitated enough to find the red emergency button on their
home screen (after entering their unlock password) can be approximated as
zero. And if you have one of those "emergency call bypass" features for your
lock screen...well, you're already done.

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dpatrick86
Serious question... why can't I SMS 911? This article focuses on geolocation
data... which is fine. But what about cases where a person is unable to speak
verbally because of either physical impairment, or because they are afraid or
otherwise unable to do so?

This would be so easy to implement, can it even really be said to be a
technology problem?

~~~
wlesieutre
> In an agreement with NENA and APCO, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon have
> voluntarily committed to provide text-to-911 service by May 15, 2014 in all
> areas served by their networks where a 911 call center is prepared to
> receive texts.

[http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911](http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911)

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neil1
Obviously, the problem is not the technology, it's an antiquated government. A
government that is run by bureaucrats, that don't know how to properly
leverage technology, especially satellite technology.

~~~
mmagin
I think it would also be reasonable to place some blame on telephone company
monopolies/duopolies who are in a comfortable, profitable place and resistant
to change.

~~~
neil1
Exactly, but I think one of the problems is that since government is filled
with bureaucrats, who don't understand how easy it is to implement this, they
instead listen to the phone company lobbyists, who says "this will be
incredibly expensive and hard to enable"

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chiph
The problem I've had with reporting accidents is that the phone isn't loud
enough to be heard over other traffic. So I can't hear the 911 dispatcher.

My guess is they're being volume-limited to protect people's hearing, but in a
high ambient-noise environment (like, standing beside an interstate) it really
needs to be louder.

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modeless
Is anyone working on something better than signal strength triangulation for
cell tower based positioning? It seems crazy to me that we can get accuracy of
a few meters using weak signals from satellites in space, while the strong
signals from nearby cell towers give you only kilometer level accuracy.

~~~
wlesieutre
Generally speaking, cell phones today already know where they are with pretty
good accuracy. So the most obvious solution would be to have a standardized
system for a phone to send its GPS/wifi based position to the 911 center.

In some cases the caller is not able to communicate verbally because they're
choking, hiding in the closet from an intruder, or any number of other
reasons. In those situations, being able to reach 911 by SMS would allow them
to give a location. You can't yet, but it's being worked on.

[http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911](http://www.fcc.gov/text-to-911)

~~~
taejo
If you're in a closet, your phone probably can't get a GPS signal,
unfortunately.

~~~
wlesieutre
Whatever positioning source it's using, my phone can place me within around 20
ft while it's in my closet. Not perfect, but about the same accuracy as
anywhere else in my apartment.

But yeah, if you're in a city with huge buildings blocking GPS signals and 50
floors of little apartments stacked on top of each other, then a rough street
address may not help enough anyway.

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upofadown
All phones should have the ability to send your location to the other end of
_any_ call/SMS at the press of a button. There should also be no way a remote
entity can trigger this...

Then the feature would be useful in day to day life and would be well
supported. We have to stop treating emergency communications as something
special. The actual problem here is a lack of proper standards.

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viraptor
They talk a lot about cell phones, but another source with no location is a
VoIP call. In some areas the operators are forced to collect location info and
pass it on to local emergency services in case they are queried, but in
practice... who has ever updated that entry? This is the case for the UK's
ITSPs at least.

You can't easily query those location details quickly.

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nikomen
Wouldn't a smart phone enable GPS automatically to try to get a more accurate
location when 911 is dialed? Obviously this doesn't help with phones that have
no GPS, but I would think with the amount of smart phones in use today it
wouldn't be a big of an issue.

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heygiraffe
Perhaps we should interpret this article in this way: The government wants to
be able to track _everyone_ , all the time. And here's a justification that
will let this idea slip past your defenses.

Something to think about.

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socrates1998
This seems like a problem that really shouldn't be a problem.

How can the cell companies share data with the NSA against the wishes of their
customers, yet not share information with 911 which is clearly in the best
interests of the customer?

I just don't get it. Do corporations really don't give a shit about whether
people live and die?

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preetnation
CEO of a company working on this problem.

Honestly I'm enthused to hear the initiative, critical thinking, and passion
behind your ideas here. I personally agree with many of you that the first
problem here IS NOT technology. It isn't that we don't have the technology, it
is that the technology isn't being properly applied nor has been there been a
willingness to adopt it. A big reason for this is that the people making the
decisions of what to use and provide (telcos and CAD companies) are not the
people who face the consequences when response arrives too slowly (regular
people like you and me).

As monkmartinez said, this is a full-stack issue. Here's the full workflow
assuming what is state-of-the-art in a 911 center.

You need help. Bring out your smartphone and press 'Emergency' if you have
iOS. Tap '9' '1' '1' and dial.

Call rings once, maybe twice. Depending on the area, this could be a long
time.

Call is routed to nearest PSAP

They pick up and say '9-1-1 emergency.'

You say something about what's going on.

Their first question, "Where are you located?"

Most often, you don't exactly know. so if you were in SF, "I'm in SOMA, near
the ballpark."

They want more detail, cause they want to avoid what happened with
monkmartinez below. "Sir, can you name cross-streets?"

Hopefully you know. "3rd and brannan". Now they have something they can use to
dispatch responders.

If you don't know, they will keep asking for more specificity. At the same
time, they are using their console (which looks like it was built in Fortran)
to manually refresh to try and get your coordinates. This takes anywhere from
45 seconds to 6 minutes, the whole time you have to be on the call without
hanging up.

Let's say they get the coordinates. The accuracy can be anywhere from 150
meters to 4000meters. Also, they come in as RAW coordinates (37.7756,
-122.4193).

They then write these coordinates on paper, go to Google Maps on a separate
console and type them in. THEN they have an address that they can dispatch
responders to. It is insane.

There is so much room to improve this. 9-1-1 is a public service that people
depend as part of the social fabric that enables our lives. It is crazy to me
that this is such a problem, and I know that it is one that has to be fixed.
We think that fixing this will definitively make the world a better place and
enable many people to live better lives.

If you want to know more about our company and what we are working on:
angel.co/bluelight-1 or email preet@getbluelight.com

~~~
monkmartinez
The real problem is the diversity in hardware and software from one district
or department to the next. I live and breathe this stuff everyday and have
given it some serious consideration. I think that it is high time a 911 or
emergency protocol was developed. A network level interface standard that
would enable data sharing across the board. The other problem is $$$... there
isn't much money to spend on this at the municipal level right now. I don't
think it will be like this forever, but it is certainly a problem right now.

Edit: Another issue is the people making the purchasing decisions on the
public safety side do NOT understand technology. The men and women who are
Chiefs or Directors were not born into technology. They are "old school"
firefighters/paramedics and with that mindset comes a lot of baggage. Most of
them are downright scared of technology. This is rapidly changing as the
demographics of the fire/ems service are in total flux. Baby boomers are
retiring because the job is physically demanding and your body wears out.
Newer guys/gals like myself (9 years) embrace tech and are active to find ways
to leverage it.

I have lots of ideas that I am working on for Android and the fire/ems
service, but are mostly related to education, reference, promotional exams and
such Ie. one man projects. These big problems are complex beasts that would
require me to quit driving a fire engine (sometimes, I can't believe I am
actually paid to do that) while improving my programming ability full time to
gain employment in the software industry... its a conundrum that I've wrestled
with for some time.

~~~
preetnation
Definitively agreed. I'd love to pick your brain and chat

