ERMA – Cape May County is fast approaching a new era of coordination and regionalization of its’ public safety dispatching services.
A $2.1-million project to create an emergency communications center that will unify all county police and fire departments, plus emergency medical and Office of Emergency Management functions is slated to become operational in January. The Herald recently got a preview tour of the 14,000-square-foot center in the Lower Township Public Safety Building at the Cape May County Airport where the countywide dispatch is located.
Martin Pagliughi, the coordinator of the Office of Emergency Management, discussed the progress made since his June update.
“We have created 26 total dispatch consoles, with additional supervisory positions,” Pagliughi said.
The plan is to incrementally activate consoles as more agencies join the regional communications center. Pagliughi stated that he could not name all of the agencies anticipated to join now because many have a “wait-and-see” attitude until they understand the benefits of regionalization.
The plan begins implementation with three dispatch consoles that will include Lower Township and two other municipalities.
The new system is part of the extensive renovation being done at Lower Township Public Safety Building.
The system is designed to be compatible with 700 or 800 Mz (megahertz) radio systems, as well as the older VHF systems currently used in the county.
The system will improve the ability to locate the source of callers in distress, although the problem of the inability to pinpoint cell phone callers exactly will remain until a solution to the cell phone issue is finalized.
Pagliughi added that county personnel are working with Verizon and AT&T to solve that problem. As of now, the system can track cell phone callers to the nearest cell tower, but no closer.
Other features of the system will enable police to complete incident reports on their patrol car’s mobile data terminal (laptop compter) and transmit the report electronically into a “Records Management System” where fire, crime and incident analysis can be conducted for each participating municipality, as well as countywide Calls for Service analysis.
Pagliughi explained that the software from InfoShare includes modules that can be activated to serve not only communications needs but will save administrative costs by providing a records management system for reports, scheduling, and evidence management in addition to the (CAD) computer-assisted dispatch needs for the county.
Motorola is providing the $1.5 million hardware component that includes computer consoles for the 26 dispatch positions, and the four positions in a separate training room, as well as other miscellaneous computer-related components.
Pagliughi concluded by saying “Although we are excited about the cost savings that this system will create, we are more excited about the improved public safety services we will deliver once we are up and running early next year.”
To contact Jim McCarty, email jmccarty@cmcherald.com.
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