Prince William firefighters grapple with dispatch problems

There are some problems with Prince William’s new $16.4 million police, and fire and rescue emergency response system.

Motorola’s PremierOne system was installed in June. Since then, rescue crews have logged several problems with the system’s GPS service, and firefighters have had problems reading system text alerts.

There have been several false alarms during overnight shifts as crews were dispatched to calls outside their standard coverage areas.

“I’ve spent countless hours between phone calls, emails and setting up communications trying to work through these issues,” said said OWL Volunteer Fire Department Chief Jim McAllister.

The new system was purchased by Prince William County after an extensive bidding process, according to Battalion Chief Scott Boggs.

“This system is a project that has been ongoing for a couple of years. We started with development of the requirements that we would want to have in a new CAD (computer aided dispatch) system…it’s for processing the 9-1-1 calls, dispatching 9-1-1 calls…it’s very complex – there’s a number of components,” said Prince William fire and rescue Chief Kevin McGee.

McAllister said the county’s communication center has been very responsive when he places calls to the company for help with the new system.

“…But the information seems to change by the hour…and we’ve gotten two different answers from two different people at the exact same time,” said OWL Volunteer Fire Department Chief Jim McAllister.

Problems with the system

To login to the system, fire and rescue responders need to log into Agency Web, an application that shows which emergency units are staffed and ready to respond to emergency calls. Then crews log into then into PremierOne, the system that directs crews to the scene of an emergency.

It’s a very clunky and slow process.

McAllister stated that when the system went live, the volunteer units were not even listed in the system, and some of the department’s trucks and boats were not listed either.

“The first problem we had with the system was…all of our units were not [listed]. And we couldn’t come in and staff our units [in the system]…If it was an oversight, it was a huge one…we took enough time to put our surrounding jurisdictions in [to the system] but we didn’t even take the time to put in our own…now I can’t just look at my units…I have to look at my units and Dale City’s units [using career unit numbers],” McAllister said.

“That was an oversight…and it’s actually on our list to correct. It does not, in any way, impact the ability to dispatch,” said Prince William County Assistant Chief Jim Forgo.

When looking at pages in the system that give information about an emergency call, the text on a white computer screen appears in yellow, making it very difficult for first responders to read.

“I can’t see that, I can’t read that. With sunglasses on, I definitely can’t read that…if I go to night mode, I can read it. If I go back to day mode, the [text] turns black [and can be read]…so I’m responding on the road, a call pops up on here with additional information that I need to know…and the answer [I was given] is go to night mode and come back to day mode with my lights and sirens on,” said McAllister.

At the time McAllister demonstrated these problems to Potomac Local, the global positioning system (GPS) was not working, leaving responders to use their memory and paper maps to get to the scene of an emergency.

According to McGee, the GPS capabilities in PremierOne are now working.

Bump in the night

During the night, several false alerts have been going off, waking up volunteer fire and rescue crews.

“The firemen aren’t getting any rest because of these alarms going on all night long, and they’re being woken up and they’re going to work during the day tired…the equipment’s not functioning – units are being staffed and unstaffed accidentally…so we’re missing calls in some aspects,” said McAllister.

According to McAllister, some stations were having as many as 15 false alerts a night.

Forgo stated that the false alert issue has now been fixed.

“What happened was one system wasn’t talking to the other system the right way. And as soon as we were notified, Motorola and the other company that does the alerting worked together and corrected that program,” said Forgo.

And on the evening of July 9, the county issued an alert the system was offline.

The alert stated:

Significant Event: Be advised CAD is offline. You will not receive calls on your MDC. Please mark up on the radio for all status updates. PSCC dispatchers are working off paper. Be patient.

According to Forgo, the system was temporarily shut down to make improvements to the system, and to reboot it.

What this means for Prince William

McAllister stated that he is working diligently with the county and Prince William fire and rescue to remedy these system issues but has concerns.

“There are a lot of things where we can say, ‘what if’. At this point, we just want the system fixed. They appear to be fixing it…the real issue…is our citizens are reading information…and when they read that, and they see this system, and they look at it and go ‘oh, this new system is great’ that’s not really what’s going on here,” McAllister said.

McAllister also stated that while the system was nearing its ‘end of life’ there was more time that could have been used for testing, which could have prevented these issues.

Additionally, McAllister stated that there is no risk for residents placing emergency calls, but that these system issues are putting a bigger strain on the volunteer responders.

“It’s not a risk to [residents] because we’re monitoring radios at this point. We know how degraded this is at this point, so our people are listening to the radios…so the risk has been mitigated by people at the station…but it’s more strain on [responders],” said McAllister.

McGee stated that many of the features offered in PremierOne were not ones previously available with the old system and that if needed, the system can be shut off.

“It’s hard to imagine that we would have been able to turn on a system as complex as this without having areas that we needed to address and make improvements to. We were fully prepared to turn this on – and if it didn’t meet our expectations – that we can turn it off and go back to the old system until we troubleshoot it,” said McGee.