Alachua Communications Center Uses New Technology
Published December 30th, 2012
GAINESVILLE - Robert Ellzey works at the alachua county communications center. He says avl or automatic vehicle location, allows the communications center to see where their dispatched officials are, all the time.
Ellzey says, "For a civilian calling in that function is going to allow us to tell them the approximate time the vehicle is going to get there and how far away the vehicle is coming from. For our commanding officers like our lieutenants, our sergeants, our district chiefs, that lets us tell them where our units are at while they're responding to scene without having to look at their computer.That way they can drive and concentrate on other things."
The center as a whole receives about 12-1,400 calls every 24 hours. Ellzey says the AVL system helps them get to emergencies faster. "Let's take an instance that we have a tree and a storm down. The tree will knock out movement, in a certain road way by blocking it. We can tell whether our unit is on the far side or the near side. Whether they have to go through that pole and access around it," Ellzey says.
Ashley Wood another telecommunicator says AVL reassures and calms callers down by informing those who need assistance who far away help is. Wood says, "Being on this side of the equation of taking the calls and not being on the other side of the life and death emergencies, I can definitely say that having the avl system, to our advantage is something that I would definitely want when I ever I called in for a life or death emergency."
The system can even locate the coordinates of cell phone callers that may not know their address or location. Wood says she can't wait for the center's next technological move.
Reporter:
Stephanie Bechara
