NEW DISPATCHING CENTER COMMENCES TODAY

After almost three years of research, planning, design and construction the new dispatching operations for the Town of Scituate began today. 

Your new Public Safety Complex boasts a state of the art Communications Center which will become the nucleus of emergency operations for the Town.  The Center will bring together the currently distributed police and fire dispatch functions into a centralized, homogenous operation.  Police, fire, and dispatching staff have been cross-trained on both police dispatch functions (criminal records checks, state data base access) and EMD (Emergency Medical Dispatch) and separate policies and protocols have been revised to provide for seamless response. Previously, the police department had to “dial down” to the fire station for its calls. Now it is instantaneous with two dispatchers operating out of the Center. The Center will also automate functions that were previously manual such as fire logs. Combined dispatch or regional dispatch operations are the prevailing model for communications in the country. With our new operations center Scituate joins that group.

The Scituate Communications Center is the Primary Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) for the Town.   All 911 calls will be routed through the center via the Commonwealth’s Next Generation e911 system.  This new system will provide the Center’s personnel with enhanced features and functionalities beyond what is available today; including advanced mapping technology, geographic data overlays, expanded services for the hearing impaired and future capabilities for the receipt of text and video messaging.

The Communications Center will also provide Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) from a single source; allowing staff to more rapidly triage and provide life-saving service to callers.

The Public Safety Complex, and more specifically the Communications Center, is designed to be operated in a 24x7x365 environment

The Center is outfitted with four highly functional consoles (two primaries and two secondary for high volume incidents/events).  Each of these consoles provides staff members with the ability to communicate with first responders not only from Scituate, but also with neighboring communities, county, state and federal agencies.  Mission critical communication operations have been designed with redundancy in mind and allow for interoperability across multiple disciplines. 

From each of the consoles, personnel have the ability to control a vast array of systems including:

Two-Way Radio Communications (UHF/VHF – police, fire, EMS, marine, DPW, schools, as well as county/state/federal assets)

Next Generation e911

Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD)

Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD)

Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS)

VOIP Telephone Systems for Police and Fire Operations

Public Safety Complex security including security Camera, access Control and prisoner monitoring

CCTV – security cameras for municipal assets including schools, maritime interest and fire stations

Station Alerting & Monitoring across each of the Town’s three fire stations

What all this means is improved service and response to our residents and businesses where seconds count.