By Phil Davis
The Capital
The county has installed a $2.2 million 911 Dispatch system officials say will reduce response times and offer geo-location tracking of emergency service vehicles.
In a release, the county said the new Computer Aided Dispatch system uses “a graphic user interface which enables our users to more efficiently enter and retrieve information.” The county said the system was installed at all county police and fire departments on Jan. 30.
County dispatchers previously worked with a system that was more than two decades old, officials said.
The county worked with Infor -- a New York-based software vendor that works with Amazon Web Services to develop industry-specific business-centric applications -- for the past two years to develop the system, the county wrote.
Money came from the JumpStart Anne Arundel Capital Funding Program, which extended the life of county bonds from 20 to 30 years to finance more capital projects, the county said.
Anne Arundel County Fire Chief Allan Graves praised the system, touting its ability to cut down on response times by integrating geo-location of emergency vehicles into how responders are sent to a scene.
“The Automatic Vehicle Location component of the new system will increase efficiency and reduce response times by recognizing and recommending in real time the closest fire and (Emergency Medical Services) units (to) dispatch to an emergency,” Graves wrote in a statement.
The system marks an improvement for a part of the department that still faces staffing issues.
Police hosted an open house for new recruits late last year after some dispatchers began working up to two to six shifts of overtime each week. The department is hopeful recruitment will bring in staffers ready to work in the call center by the end of spring.
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