Case Study | North County Dispatch JPA & Heartland Communications, California
Partnering for Interoperability and Disaster Recovery
Key Benefits
- Maintain autonomy as two separate centers while being able to operate on the same shared system
- Ensure continuity of operations with a virtualization platform and a fully redundant disaster recovery system
- Improved mutual aid and joint response coordination with CAD-2-CAD interface
Agencies
- North County Dispatch Joint Powers Authority (NCDJPA)
- Heartland Communications Facility Authority (HCFA)
- Combined, the facilities serve 15 cities, 8 fire districts, two tribal areas, and many Volunteer Fire Departments in the northern, eastern and southern portions of San Diego County
Vital Statistics
- Area Served - 4,326 sq. miles (San Diego County)
- Population - 3.2 Million (San Diego County)
- Call Volume - 420,000 (Combined, includes San Diego Fire-Rescue)
- Go Live - June 2010
- Dispatcher/Call-Taker Seats - 16
- Mobile Units - 150
Products
- VisiCAD
- VisiNet Mobile
- VisiNet Browser
- VisiCAD Disaster Recovery
Overview
NCDJPA provides fire and emergency medical dispatch services to most fire departments in northern San Diego County. HCFA provides fire and emergency medical dispatch services to most fire departments in eastern and southern San Diego County. The neighboring fire dispatch centers partnered together to achieve their mutually beneficial goals of operating on leading technology, developing a thorough disaster recovery plan, and sharing information with San Diego Fire‐Rescue for interoperability.
After the 2007 San Diego Fires which forced evacuations of thousands of San Diego residents, NCDJPA Administrator Lesli Wilson set to work on a disaster recovery and continuity of operations plan. At the same time, HCFA was working on a plan to update their computer‐aided dispatch solution which was nearly 10 years old and did not provide any means of information sharing with other agencies in San Diego.
Through the partnership, NCDJPA expanded their existing VisiCAD computer‐aided dispatch and VisiNet Mobile data solutions to incorporate HCFA dispatch operations. HCFA was able totransition to an updated computer‐aided dispatch and mobile data solutions shared with NCDJPA and providing interoperability with San Diego Fire‐Rescue. Additionally, the HCFA and NCDJPA are now are fully redundant back up centers for additional benefits of disaster recovery and continuity of operations.
Challenge
In 2007, the North County Dispatch Communications center, along with thousands of San Diego residents, were subject to evacuations by the 2007 “Witch fire”, named after the area near Witch Creek where it started, which burned a total of over 197,000 acres.
Without a remote back up center for the staff at NCDJPA to evacuate, the call‐takers, dispatchers and personnel remained at the Communications Center working through 24 ‐hour shifts to manage calls and operations. With the deadly fire just miles down the road, they were protected by one single engine protecting the communications center. Not quite an emergency back up plan but one that had to do in this time.
Heartland Fire Communications Authority did not have a similar experience during the fires. Their detriment to their operations was an outdated DOS‐based computer‐aided dispatch system. HFCA was operating on a 10‐year old CAD system that did not have the flexibility and interoperability needed in these times when information sharing is a priority for public safety agencies. Heartland operations focus was to upgrade to a new computer‐aided dispatch system in a least expensive manner.
Solution
Long‐time TriTech customer since 1999, North County Dispatch JPA expanded their VisiCAD computer‐aided dispatch and VisiNet Mobile Data solution to incorporate Heartland Fire. The two fire dispatch centers will be able to operate on the same system and share information as one Regional Command and Control Solution. In turn, by operating on the same mobile data solution, the field personnel will have real‐time access to all the critical incident information from the communication centers and be able to quickly identify and locate all units responding to an incident on the integrated map.
To connect the two geographically diverse dispatch centers and provide for true redundancy, NCDJPA and HCFA deployed Stratus servers at each site with synchronized replication of the primary CAD server at NCDJPA to the back up site of HCFA in real‐time. VisiCAD remains online and fully available during data backup processes without disruption to end users and ensures continuous availability with updated information at the backup site. If either site loses connection with the primary server at NCDJPA, the back up server will be available with up to date information so that the transition of operations from NCDJPA to HCFA (or vice versa) will be completely seamless to communications staff, field units and the public.
Citrix
Additionally, VisiCAD is deployed on Citrix application virtualization platform allowing users at HCFA remote communication centers to connect to applications available from NCDJPA’s central server. While the centers are separated by 40 miles, Citrix technology’s low bandwidth demands provide instantaneous access to VisiCAD without compromising reliability and performance needed in a mission‐critical system. All users at the remote sites are connected via a secure connection with access to the full call‐taking, dispatch and resource management capabilities of VisiCAD.
“In these economic times this is an excellent example of organizations that do the same thing working together in a regional approach, and ultimately saving the taxpayers thousands of dollars, and providing a better service”.- Chip Yarborough, Director of Heartland Communications, California
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According to Charlie Knust, communications manager for NCDJPA, “Citrix provides us the ability to incorporate HCFA as a remote dispatch center and back up site, but also for the flexibility to relocate dispatch centers as long as connection to internet is available. With Citrix and an available internet connection, not only HCFA and NCDJPA are redundant centers for each other, but allows an added layer for each agency to be more redundant within ourselves.”
Additionally, IT functions are streamlined since only the Citrix server needs to be maintained and upgraded, and applications are quickly and easily deployed, which minimizes disruption to dispatch operations. This cost effective solution also greatly minimizes network costs which are typically required to provide remote access.
Interoperability for San Diego County ‐ Borderless Boundaries
A key component to the partnership of HCFA and NCDJPA was interoperability with San Diego‐Fire Rescue. All fire agencies in San Diego are on the same radio network, so a key component to the partnership of HCFA and NCDJPA was complete interoperability with San Diego Fire Rescue and all three fire dispatch centers in San Diego county would operate on the same CAD system.
Prior to the partnership, the CAD systems at NCDJPA and San Diego‐Fire Rescue, who also utilize TriTech VisiCAD and VisiNet Mobile are currently connected via TriTech’s Advanced Cad‐to‐ Cad Interface. The jurisdiction of San Diego‐Fire Rescue is bordered on the north with NCDJPA and bordered on the east and south with HCFA. However, with TriTech’s CAD‐to‐CAD interface, calls can be dispatched simultaneously and the closest available unit responds to an incident, at any time, regardless of the jurisdiction that first receives the call.
Now, San Diego dispatchers will be able to automatically send the closest available fire crews to an emergency, even if the resources belong to an agency served by Heartland or NCDJPA. Conversely, Heartland and NCDJPA can dispatch San Diego firefighters, if necessary. Mutual aid agreements between neighboring fire departments have been in existence for years, but support was managed manually through a phone call to the other agency. Through TriTech’s CAD system and CAD‐to‐CAD interface, incident information and dispatching of resources is shared in an instant between the three different dispatch centers improving automatic aid and response times.
According to Lesli Wilson, administrator of NCDJPA, “Our expanded CAD project with HCFA and our continued partnership with San Diego Fire‐Rescue provide a global perspective making it easier to communicate and coordinate resources between the three fire agencies in San Diego County. With our advancements, we are making great strides in ensuring that the people in San Diego County receive continuous availability of services and improved emergency response times.”
Client Benefits / Summary
The Heartland Communications Joint Powers Authority and NorthCom Joint Powers Authority partnered on a shared Computer Aided Dispatch and mobile data system that will utilize the latest technology in communications dispatch software, provide a critical redundancy, and enhance interoperability throughout San Diego County.
Working together on the CAD project has brought together joint management cooperative staffing agreements and enhanced the overall partnership between the two centers. The similar systems allow them have a shared IT staff and have staff able to work at each center when resources are low ‐ such as during high profile events. Additionally, with common radio systems, shared CAD and Mobile data system, and plans for a joint phone system purchase, NCDJPA and HCFA have increased their sustainability of their operations by sharing funding.
Heartland Communications Director Chip Yarborough says “In these economic times this is an excellent example of organizations that do the same thing working together in a regional approach, and ultimately saving the taxpayers thousands of dollars, and providing a better service”.
