cellphone
Silent key.
If anyone has not heard the computer voice fire dispatches, they are occurring for live calls on VHF A3 right now. Normal human voiced dispatches are occurring on A1/K1.
Phoenix Fire Computer Voice Dispatching
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MFD4305
Member
Yep!
This has been going on for a while. The computerized dispatch follows the live dispatch on A1/K1 by about 15 seconds - at least for some of the calls...
This has been going on for a while. The computerized dispatch follows the live dispatch on A1/K1 by about 15 seconds - at least for some of the calls...
cellphone
Silent key.
Well that was a short lived test.... It stopped just before 5:00pm. That was the first time I have heard the computer voice. I noticed in other threads there have been some tests. I was hoping this one would last a little longer. I didn't think it sounded bad. Both the computer and human dispatches started at about the same time for most of the calls. The computer voice was a little slower than the human voice dispatches. The computer voice was took about 1-3 seconds longer to get the dispatches voiced.
KB7MIB
Member
I've heard the computer voice on A-1/K-1 early in the morning. Once I heard a dispatcher announce they were going to do so starting at 4:24am, and they ended around 6am.
I did hear one afternoon computer voice dispatch about a week ago.
I did hear one afternoon computer voice dispatch about a week ago.
tipster67
Member
They have been testing it a lot for like the past week.. Mostly during the overnight hours.
tipster67
Member
Just started again at 4:05 am. It was announced that it would be running till 6am.
I've heard the computer dispatched thing on the Seattle feeds and it sounds...weird. Hopefully the Phoenix ones sounds better if they plan to use it regularly.
phoenix comupter voice dispatching
Some backround. What you are hearing is a Loucution app tied into the fire CAD. The ideas was to acopmplish 2 things: speed disptaching of the crews, and handle mutiple calls at the same time with no loss in dispatching time from initial reporting time, two of a number of benchmarks that determine total response time, from time of request, to on scene time. I took a tour of Phoenix Alarm and spoke to a dispatcher in May and he told me they are playing with it but at this point are not satified. He said the straw that broke the back was a fire that was dispatched and broadcast vocally. The first in unit did not respond and when the BC(who was on the air ) went to the station to find out why, the "package"( all Call and dispatch data from the CAD) was just arriving almost 2 min later. I believe he stated the BC was alerting the personnel when the Package actually arrived.
He stated they terminated computer voice for the time being until the bugs were worked out and said likely they would continue voice notification on A!/K1 for the foreseeable future. The concensus was they did not have confidence taking a human being out of the loop was a good idea.
For the curious, Locution is used in a nuber of larger cities, Las Vegas and San Antonio Tx . Thay may not be the only game in town anymore, but I believe they are the largest.
note: I know for sure Las Vegas has a VHF frequency and all stations are setup to recieve 2 tone paging as a back up and cancelations are often sent this way.
Some backround. What you are hearing is a Loucution app tied into the fire CAD. The ideas was to acopmplish 2 things: speed disptaching of the crews, and handle mutiple calls at the same time with no loss in dispatching time from initial reporting time, two of a number of benchmarks that determine total response time, from time of request, to on scene time. I took a tour of Phoenix Alarm and spoke to a dispatcher in May and he told me they are playing with it but at this point are not satified. He said the straw that broke the back was a fire that was dispatched and broadcast vocally. The first in unit did not respond and when the BC(who was on the air ) went to the station to find out why, the "package"( all Call and dispatch data from the CAD) was just arriving almost 2 min later. I believe he stated the BC was alerting the personnel when the Package actually arrived.
He stated they terminated computer voice for the time being until the bugs were worked out and said likely they would continue voice notification on A!/K1 for the foreseeable future. The concensus was they did not have confidence taking a human being out of the loop was a good idea.
For the curious, Locution is used in a nuber of larger cities, Las Vegas and San Antonio Tx . Thay may not be the only game in town anymore, but I believe they are the largest.
note: I know for sure Las Vegas has a VHF frequency and all stations are setup to recieve 2 tone paging as a back up and cancelations are often sent this way.
KB7MIB
Member
Luke AFB FD uses "First In" alerting (there's a test every morning about 6:55am). It gives out minimal details, which is immediately followed up by a real dispatcher with further details.
W8RMH
Feed Provider Since 2012
Columbus Ohio has been using Locution Systems, Inc. for many years now (approximately 144,000 calls in 2013). The greatest benefit is the ability to dispatch 20 calls at the same time, thereby increasing response times and saving lives.
Also it is not a computer voice but actually a recorded human voice. It took some getting used to but now you miss it if it is down. It's nice to get the information constantly, in the same order and volume, plus they have a lot of station alerting features as well.
Also it is not a computer voice but actually a recorded human voice. It took some getting used to but now you miss it if it is down. It's nice to get the information constantly, in the same order and volume, plus they have a lot of station alerting features as well.
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Raleigh Durham uses the automated computer dispatch with locution and have for awhile now. Only thing I can see is a potential glitch across so many jurisdictions somehow locked up the system in that incident mentioned earlier. Ive never heard of major issues with it but the Regional Dispatch is a unique system here in Phoenix Metro that might be causing the issue..
Looking at what you mentioned this doesnt seem to be a failure of Locution but a comm failure with the CAD somehow. Similiar issue could still come up if the dispatch fails to be sent to the station via CAD in the middle of the night with nobody up and about.. One thing to be said for the old Quickcall tones if they are sent out over the radio the alerting system will go off..
Phoenix RWC has been using computerized dispatching inside the fire stations for years, and it's worked fairly well. Now they're doing it over the radio, which will slow down the verbal aspect of the dispatches because it can only voice dispatch one incident at a time. The computerized voice can't talk faster when calls get piled up as usually happens during monsoon storms, and it can't slow down to allow for better pronunciation. We're not gonna talk about mispronunciation of street names. The computerized voice does not give out apartment numbers or names, nor business names or building numbers. That's a lot of important information to leave out.
I have a lot of safety concerns about this system, but if the city wants to spend the money they've taken away from their employees to buy an unsafe dispatch system, so be it. What really gets me is that there still has to be a dispatcher telling the computer to dispatch the call. That means it take 2 to dispatch the calls they're currently dispatching with 1.
Ed
I have a lot of safety concerns about this system, but if the city wants to spend the money they've taken away from their employees to buy an unsafe dispatch system, so be it. What really gets me is that there still has to be a dispatcher telling the computer to dispatch the call. That means it take 2 to dispatch the calls they're currently dispatching with 1.
Ed
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