LUCAS COUNTY, OH (Toledo News Now) - Dispatchers in Lucas County are getting ready to trade in their old dispatching system for an upgrade.
Dispatchers in Lucas County take 1,200-1,500 calls a day. They have to route crews for the calls without access to GPS or other mapping systems to help. That is about to change, though.
For the last 20 years, the dispatchers have been using the same computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system.
"Our program is DOS-related," said James Briggs, a dispatcher. "Every command, we have to type in. We're going to be able to do drop-down menus, we're going to be able to click and point, we're going to be able to put units on with the click of a button the mouse."
Dispatchers began training on the new system last fall.
"With GPS, it's going to show where the units are at on the map, and then it's actually going to in and do calculations to determine which unit is the closest to where the incident is occurring, and people will get a little bit quicker service," said Patricia Moomey, with the Lucas County EMS.
Dispatcher say 60 percent of calls they get are from cell phones, and the new system has a tool for that, as well.
"We'll be able to tell where exactly on the expressway you're calling from," said Danielle Klavinger. "Prior to this, we had to wait and have you let us know where you were at."
The new system should be up and running by the end of this year or early next year.
