The ins and outs of rural 911 calls info?

[snowplowguy]

Gonna provide some (limited) info that I know and also looking for any additional information that anybody has.

I'm located in a rural part of Niagara. We haven't had 911 dispatch for too long...... well..... maybe 8-10 years now (I'm gettin' old).

When I was a youngster and my pappy was a VFF there was no 911 in our area. You dialed the Firephone in case of a fire....... and the local ambulance in case of medical emergency. There were no police to speak of.

In 2000 things changed drastically here. The region took over and fired the local ambulance service.... which looked after a huge part of this area...... and knew most of the people. Most of them didn't need addresses.... just names.

Now the Niagara Region has totally taken over the 911 emerg stuff. The ambulances are dispatched thru St. Catharines (rather than local), as well as the West Lincoln (2 units) VFF fire (which are still local folks), and I presume the NRP.... which are scarse in this area.

Now...... my pappy died at the ripe old age of 58 in April of '01 ....... not necessarily due to the changes in the system..... but the ambulance did get lost for the best part of an hour. :shock:

I'm just trying to figure out how this Niagara 911 stuff works. I have several local friends still who are VFF. They have no clue how their radios work but say their calls now come out of St. Catharines, as well as Niagara Regional Police, and Ambulance.

Now...... the NRP are on a digitally encrypted system, the ambulance are most likely not quite on fleetnet just yet..... and the VFF out here .... well god knows...... but we get lots of calls. I helped with 3 calls Sunday (2 major structure fires)....... and a burned up snowmobile.

So just how does this system work? 911 dispatch gets a fire call to West Lincoln....... do they have 3 types of radio systems that they dispatch? Fire, Ambulance, and NRP ?

I've tried to search forever on how the system works..... but just can't find much on it.

 

[I_10_92]

THis is my take on it.. not sure if its right or not.

WHen you call 911 you get the 911 Operator. That operator then contacts via phone or computer the police/fire/ambulance dispatcher. Each dispatcher maybe housed in a different building. So I call 911, I need my house fire put out. So 911 contacts the fire dispatcher to dispatch fire, then the 911 operator contacts PD, and then contacts ambulance if necessary.

I'm pretty sure thats how it works, that the 911 operators are in a seperate location from the dispatchers who might be all in the same room, but across town from the 911 guys and gals.

I know when listening to the Hot Shot calls here in Toronto, it seems as though the dispatcher is repeating information over the air from another sourse. and more times than not, the dispatcher will say "we're still awaiting further".

I think thats right hope that helps some!

 

[SCPD]

That's pretty much how I understand it as well.

When York Region first got 911 they used a bell call center located in Ottawa of all places. It worked ok but not perfect. The call takers had no idea where say, Keswick was never mind a street address. It led to confusion now and again and eventually the Region decided to put their own call center in place. Now all 911 calls come into the police comm center and are directed from there accordingly as outlined in the previous post.

By the way, an ambulance got lost in Scarborough a number of years back and arrived VERY late for a call...almost 50 minutes as I recall. The patient was King Clancy (Maple Leafs fame). DOA. So getting lost doesn't just happen in out of the way places.--The ambulance was dispatched from a station that was only 2 minutes away from the address without lights and sirens. Most certainly not the norm...thankfully

 

[jellotor]

I would concur with the concept of calltakers and dispatchers. I'm a native of Grey County and up there the Owen Sound Police are the 911 call centre. They transfer the call to the appropriate service.

It's a bit old, but Grey County has a page that gives some information on this:

http://www.greycounty.on.ca/Departments/Highways/911.htm

I'm not sure if Bruce County uses the same calltakers as Grey County since from what I understand the implementation of 911 services is a county or regional responsibility.

 

[akroeze]

The way they do it in Chatham-Kent is this.

911
Dispatcher picks up
"C-k 911, what's your emergency? Do you require Police, Fire or Amublance?"

You say "Ambulance"

Dispatcher: "Ok, hang on one moment while I transfer your call"

They hit a button, you hear the phone ring again and the Ambulance dispatcher picks up and goes from there.

If you need Police/Ambulance then the first person you talked to when you called 911 is a dispatcher for both of those.

That's how it works here.

 

[OntarioScannerNut]

I remember one time calling 911 at one of the local bars here a while back. There were a few fights happening and the owners needed a little bit of backup.

Anyhow, I called an well, to say the least, the cops actually showed up before the call was actually taken.

I phoned 911 for the OPP and honest to God, it just sat there an rang, I let it ring about 9 times an nothing. I even phone the local office number which rings through to the main Comm Ctr and still nothing.

When the cops got there I said, if you get a call for a 911 hang up at this place I said don't worry about it now, your here. I told them it rang like 9 times, they didn't care.

The way they do it in Chatham-Kent is this.

911
Dispatcher picks up
"C-k 911, what's your emergency? Do you require Police, Fire or Amublance?"

You say "Ambulance"

Dispatcher: "Ok, hang on one moment while I transfer your call"

They hit a button, you hear the phone ring again and the Ambulance dispatcher picks up and goes from there.

If you need Police/Ambulance then the first person you talked to when you called 911 is a dispatcher for both of those.

That's how it works here.

 

[snowplowguy]

What I have learned.....Niagara Region

The Niagara 9-1-1 system is operated by the Region of Niagara, through the communications centre at the Niagara Regional Police headquarters located in downtown St. Catharines (11th Division NRPD..... 68 Church Street). This centre known as the CAB (Central Answering Bureau) receives all incoming 9-1-1 calls, where it is first determined what municipality that the emergency is in, as well as what emergency service is required. At that point the call is transferred to the appropriate emergency service who obtains additional information on sends the appropriate resources.

Lets say the emergency is fire....in.... call it Welland.


The CAB (911 call centre) patches the call through to St. Catharines Central Communications Centre. Out here it's more commonly referred to as "St. Catharines Control". St. Catharines Control operates from the St. Catharines Fire Services headquarters located at 64 Geneva Street. They dispatch fire in St. Catharines and also in the other 9 of 11 municipalities in the Region. I believe they may have taken over Lincoln (Beamsville) recently so that might make it 10 of 11.

..... anyway....... back to Welland

Once St. Catharines Control gets the message from 911 (CAB) for a Welland fire they issue a firecall. Their signal travels via Bell lines to the tower in Fonthill. From their it is transmitted to Welland pagers & radios on 153.800. It is also transmitted to a 2nd tower at River Road & Weber Road. This tower then rebroadcasts the signal on 153.800. Welland radios talk & receive from the Fonthill tower. Welland radios also have the option of using a repeater channel which transmits to the Webber Road tower on 160.070 and receives off that tower on 153.800. The Webber Road tower relays the signal back to the Fonthill Tower and into the Communications Centre (St. Catharines Control).

St. Catharines Control dispatches for the following communities;

St. Catharines
Fort Erie
Grimsby
Niagara on the Lake
Pelham (Fonthill)
Port Colborne
Thorold
Wainfleet
West Lincoln (Smithville, Caistor, Gainsborough)
Welland

and I believe recently they now do

Lincoln (Beamsville & Vineland)

and for some reason I think they also dispatch (recently)

Town of Haldimand

 

[motomeso]

I hear St.Catherines dispatching for Jarvis, Waterford and other areas down that way from here in Kitchener. The signal they pump out is nothing short of amazing, any idea where the transmitter is??

 

[Jay911]

I moved out of the Toronto area in 1990 and don't know about the systems mentioned in specific, but it's possible they're using hardline or other transmission means to go to a tower near you where they use conventional RF. The place where I'm living now has a dispatch center handling 15+ rural fire/EMS services all over southern Alberta, including everything from all around the Calgary area straight to Banff.

Some of those systems are done direct from the dispatch center using conventional RF off a 400' tower. Some are done with a system that goes via hardline to another tower site in town, then microwave to a REALLY tall tower outside town, then conventional RF from there. Yet another uses a satellite radio system that requires no repeaters in the department's working area, which is deep in the Rocky Mountains.

Another nearby dispatch center uses IRLP to link with a remote fire/EMS service. IRLP = Internet Radio Linking Project, used mostly by ham radio. www.irlp.net for more info.