By Jodi Weigand
The Pittsburgh Tribune Review
MONROEVILLE, Pa. — Police and ambulance response times could improve by as much as a minute once the Monroeville Police Department upgrades to a computer-aided dispatch system.
The system will pinpoint cell phone locations using longitude and latitude coordinates, and generate a satellite image map through Google Earth software, said Lt. Steve Pascarella. Residential and business addresses will be pinpointed on a map.
“That’s beautiful, because we know right where that house is,” said Pascarella, special operations supervisor.
GPS tracking devices in patrol cars will give dispatchers the ability to see the cars’ locations on a map and more quickly identify units closest to emergencies, he said.
The 13-year-old dispatch and records system currently requires users to type in command codes to access or enter information, Pascarella said. The new system is Microsoft Windows-based.
Monroeville council last month unanimously approved purchasing the $300,000 software package from Alert Tracking Systems, which specializes in systems for public safety departments. The municipality will pay for it with money from a bond it issued in 2007.
Alert Tracking Systems engineers will visit the police station next week to observe dispatchers and officers before installing the software in January.
“They want to see how we work, and customize it to our operations,” Pascarella said. “They are going to design it as close (as possible) to what we’re doing.”
Dispatcher Jason Sonafelt was among those participating in a weeklong demonstration of the program.
“It’s a lot more organized and up to date,” he said.
The overhaul of the records keeping system will begin when the dispatcher inputs information. The software prohibits input of nonexistent or misspelled addresses, Pascarella said.
“It will stop this problem we’ve had for years with lost data,” he said. "(The system) gets polluted with data, and we can’t retrieve things.”
The software will vastly improve how the department generates, updates and files police reports, Pascarella said.
Currently, a paper report changes hands at least six times before settling in the file room, he said. And that’s if it’s a simple report, such as one documenting a smashed mailbox, he said.
The new system will create electronic reports. All information that dispatchers record will be saved and copied into separate files, which officers can revise. The finished reports automatically will be sent electronically to an administrator for approval, cutting the time officers and supervisors must spend in the office, Pascarella said.
“We need them out patrolling,” he said. “So, the less time they spend here, the better.”
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