Query from a journalist (and sincere apologies if I'm not welcome here)

[bmeyerson]

Hello all,
I am a telecommunications reporter with The Associated Press (AP) who writes about first-responder radio interoperability and technologies.

I recently stumbled upon a new issue (to me) about interoperability issues with mapping/GIS/geospatial systems used by different agencies.

My research online thus far has found quite a bit of impassioned debate about the wisdom of ensuring that different agencies responding to the same incident can share location information reliably and accurately......

BUT, aside from a few vague examples, I can't honestly tell whether this is an issue that actually arises in the field, possibly delaying response times, or is more of a potential risk.

I am willing to speak on background just to get a better feel about how serious an issue this is and whether it deserves an article focusing some light on it.

Please feel free to phone me at 212-621-1738, or e-mail me at bmeyerson@ap.org.

Many thanks, and apologies for any perceived intrusion on your community.
Bruce Meyerson, AP Business News

 

[ffemt8978]

First of all, you are welcome here.

As far as your research goes, some agencies (like mine) still use paper maps or our knowledge of the area to get to the scene. We do have GPS units for calling in helicopters, but that's the extent of our use of them.

Our communication center (which covers the entire county) does have mapping software as part of their CAD (Computer Aided Dispatching) system. For the most part, the directions they provide are accurate but there are always exceptions.

One of the biggest advances in getting to the scene was the implementation of standardized addressing. Given the knowledge of how that system works sure does help in locating addresses. The sad part is that people are relying on computers or technology to get them to the scene, forgetting that sometimes things break or won't work.

 

[Jon]

Hello and welcome. I'm not sure what, exactly you are looking for... My county's communications center uses mapping software that shows the location of an incident... I think the only real issues we've had is that we have mapbook page #'s linked to the addresses. They were kept current for ADC, and then when ADC came out with a new edition with a new numbering scheme, we couldn't use the numbers anymore.

The database has now been updated, but it took a little while. I suppose this could be an issue with agencies that didn't untilize X version of ____ mapbook... but the solution is to use the index in the back.

 

[fm_emt]

We all use the Thomas Guide map books. County communications will give a map grid and page out the same information. Our dispatch does the same.

As far as I know, every agency in the county and many outside the county (in areas that Thomas Guide makes maps for) are using the same system.

None of us BLS providers use GPS to tell us where to go. The GPS is used so Dispatch knows exactly where we are so they can dispatch the closest ambulance to the call.

 

[Guardian]

You guys get a fancy new word stuck into your head and you can't let it go. Interoperability is yesterdays buzzword that nobody cares about anymore because it wasn't ever really an issue to begin with. This horse has been beaten to a pulp. If you ever want to talk about real EMS issues, let me know. In urban EMS, all you need is a cheap ADC map you can buy at your local 7-11. In rural ems and especially fire, you need a little more. By a little more, I mean the maps that have been around since my grandfather volunteered as a fireman many years ago. They have a little more detail like dry hydrants, local water supply, and driveways for firefighting in a rural setting. Sometimes it's nice to have the GPS maps (laptops) because we can watch videos or flatten them out and set coffee on them. The only thing they're really used for is keeping tabs on where we are so my boss can call and bother me when I’m somewhere other than where I'm supposed to be.

 

[bmeyerson]

Thanks for all the replies, and the welcome. I often approach situations like this with the presumption that people are suspicious of the press as primarily seeking sensational angles to distort, which is not my purpose.

... and the post above by "Guardian" starts to get to the heart of what I'm after. Ove rthe course of several months, I've spoken with plenty of "experts" and policy types and officials who say there's a big problem where two different agencies responding to the same incident can't effectively share coordinates, complicating and delaying rescues.

So in approaching you, I want to know if most of the chatter I’ve heard actually touches the real people doing the work, impacting your daily work occasionally or regularly.... OR if it’s mostly a risk that something could go horribly wrong in only extreme circumstances, as on 9/11 with police and firefighters unable to communicate.

In other words… is the sky falling, or is it just that it might fall one day?

 

[BossyCow]

Our agency has experienced what I believe is the issue you refer to. I work in Search and Rescue. Often these days, the subject has a cell phone with them which makes repeated attempts to connect with the system. Each contact is marked at a GPS location of the phone. The first time we used a cell phone signal to find the location of a lost subject, the information given to us by the Cell Company was in one format while the format we use on our GPS units was in another. We now know that we need to confirm the format being used with any agency providing a GPS location to us in the field so we get an accurate location. The first location put us about 1/4 mile off from the subject, but in SAR terms, that's pretty doggone close.

We interact frequently with the local Coastguard, National Park personnel, Fire Districts and county agencies. It's part of our SOG's to confirm the mapping system being used, the format of GPS data and any other information we receive since different agencies use different systems. Most GPS units and Topo mapping programs have multiple settings, so we can generally translate anyone's data into data we can use. Most of the corrections are plotted automatically.

 

[Guardian]

Fair enough…I appreciate your effort to gather information from all levels. From my limited perspective as a grunt on the ground, I can confidently say that GPS, GIS, and geowhatever or lack thereof doesn’t effect me whatsoever while conducting routine operations. Would it effect me during an incident of national scale? I can see where it could be a problem for some systems but probably not mine.

On a side note, I’m always skeptical when “experts” start using buzzwords and say they can’t live without something they have lived without for a long time. There’s a lot of $$$ in this and so I’m glad you’re investigating it’s validity.

 

[bmeyerson]

Can you explain further about the different formats for GPS used by your agency vs. that used by the cellco? Maybe it's lat-longitude given in different increments? Or is it literally different formatting in software?

 

[FF/EMT Sam]

Ove rthe course of several months, I've spoken with plenty of "experts" and policy types and officials who say there's a big problem where two different agencies responding to the same incident can't effectively share coordinates, complicating and delaying rescues.

So in approaching you, I want to know if most of the chatter I’ve heard actually touches the real people doing the work, impacting your daily work occasionally or regularly.... OR if it’s mostly a risk that something could go horribly wrong in only extreme circumstances, as on 9/11 with police and firefighters unable to communicate.

If you want to look into the ability of agencies to communicate with each other and get access to the same information, you may want to look into the countless jurisdictions in the U.S. where the only way for Fire/EMS units to communicate with the police is by calling dispatch and having them relay it. In my opinion, that's a worse problem than having different maps, although it certaintly would be bad if dispatchers had to give different coordinates to the police and the fire crews.

Good luck with your article, and please give us a link to what, if anything, you end up publishing.

 

[MMiz]

While this topic can absolutely be sensationalized, I'd hate to say it, but you won't find it to be a tremendous problem in the field.

Medics treat their computerized dispatch data, and especially GPS location information, much like they treat the results of their automated blood pressure cuffs... it's taken with a grain of salt. A significant part of a medic's job is driving and locating patients, so you can expect that they have a good understanding of the area they're responding to. Additionally, we all know that the GPS data is often outdated, and realize the disparity between the navigation system's "fastest route" vs. our own experiences in the ambulance.

As someone who relied on a GPS for a majority of my work as a medic, I can tell you that before I flicked on the lights and sirens and followed the calming turn-by-turn instructions on my GPS unit, I always verified that it was the fastest route. I had one incident where my GPS unit took me on a back-roads response that ultimately took 45 minutes, that should have taken 15, but that is truly the exception in EMS.

You'll find this to be a more serious issue in rural EMS, where response areas are significantly larger, and no one person can have an impeccable knowledge of the entire area, but in general EMS has yet to fully grasp GPS/navigation systems, so you'll find that most agencies still rely on the $20 map book between the two seats up front.