Home 
Municipal Services Joint dispatch center features video link
Mass Innovations, From The Beacon, November 2009
When officials in Mendon, Hopedale and Millville began discussing the creation of a Mendon-based regional dispatch center early this year, the money-saving benefits were estimated at more than $100,000 per town per year.
But in order to achieve those savings, the three towns had to overcome skepticism about whether the joint dispatch center was practical.
One concern was that there would be no one at the police stations in Hopedale and Millville after normal business hours if they were no longer staffed with dispatchers.
To address this, a committee consisting primarily of public safety personnel in the three towns eventually embraced an idea, proposed by the Mendon-based technology services company Worldband, to install interactive video technology in all three of the police stations.
The video system, which already links Mendon and Hopedale and will include Millville beginning this month, makes it possible for someone to enter a police station’s lobby and, simply by picking up a phone, confer face-to-face via a large wall monitor with the on-duty dispatcher in Mendon.
“Clearly, everyone wanted some way so that someone in the middle of the night, in an emergency situation, could talk to a dispatcher,” Hopedale Town Coordinator Eugene Philips said.
Ernest Horn, who serves as Mendon’s police chief and fire chief, said the video technology also has other applications, including a surveillance tool.
“We’re able to watch the outside of [each police] facility, and we’re able to watch the cell block after they bring in a prisoner for booking,” Horn said.
The surveillance function, he said, could eventually be expanded to cover other locations in the three communities.
At some point, Horn added, people in Hopedale and Millville who enter the police station in their town when no one is on duty will be able to print out police records stored at the regional dispatch center. Users of this automated service would pay for the documents with a swipe of a debit card.
In creating the joint dispatch center, the three towns had to resolve a number of technical issues, such as standardizing the radio frequency used by different police and fire departments. Horn said, however, that this goal was relatively easy to achieve.
More challenging, he said, has been the creation of a uniform means for entering data.
“If you don’t come to some common understanding,” Horn said, “you have to have your dispatcher fluent in many ways of logging calls.”
As with other regional dispatch projects that have been proposed or developed recently, Mendon, Hopedale and Millville will benefit from grant money made available as a result of 911-related legislation passed last year.
Mendon Town Coordinator Dale Pleau said the three communities are seeking to bring in one additional town, which would make optimal use of the infrastructure that is in place and increase the amount of grant money each community receives.
For more information, contact Ernest Horn at (508) 478-2737.
Municipal Services Joint dispatch center features video link
Joint dispatch center features video link
Mass Innovations, From The Beacon, November 2009
When officials in Mendon, Hopedale and Millville began discussing the creation of a Mendon-based regional dispatch center early this year, the money-saving benefits were estimated at more than $100,000 per town per year.
But in order to achieve those savings, the three towns had to overcome skepticism about whether the joint dispatch center was practical.
One concern was that there would be no one at the police stations in Hopedale and Millville after normal business hours if they were no longer staffed with dispatchers.
To address this, a committee consisting primarily of public safety personnel in the three towns eventually embraced an idea, proposed by the Mendon-based technology services company Worldband, to install interactive video technology in all three of the police stations.
The video system, which already links Mendon and Hopedale and will include Millville beginning this month, makes it possible for someone to enter a police station’s lobby and, simply by picking up a phone, confer face-to-face via a large wall monitor with the on-duty dispatcher in Mendon.
“Clearly, everyone wanted some way so that someone in the middle of the night, in an emergency situation, could talk to a dispatcher,” Hopedale Town Coordinator Eugene Philips said.
Ernest Horn, who serves as Mendon’s police chief and fire chief, said the video technology also has other applications, including a surveillance tool.
“We’re able to watch the outside of [each police] facility, and we’re able to watch the cell block after they bring in a prisoner for booking,” Horn said.
The surveillance function, he said, could eventually be expanded to cover other locations in the three communities.
At some point, Horn added, people in Hopedale and Millville who enter the police station in their town when no one is on duty will be able to print out police records stored at the regional dispatch center. Users of this automated service would pay for the documents with a swipe of a debit card.
In creating the joint dispatch center, the three towns had to resolve a number of technical issues, such as standardizing the radio frequency used by different police and fire departments. Horn said, however, that this goal was relatively easy to achieve.
More challenging, he said, has been the creation of a uniform means for entering data.
“If you don’t come to some common understanding,” Horn said, “you have to have your dispatcher fluent in many ways of logging calls.”
As with other regional dispatch projects that have been proposed or developed recently, Mendon, Hopedale and Millville will benefit from grant money made available as a result of 911-related legislation passed last year.
Mendon Town Coordinator Dale Pleau said the three communities are seeking to bring in one additional town, which would make optimal use of the infrastructure that is in place and increase the amount of grant money each community receives.
For more information, contact Ernest Horn at (508) 478-2737.
Written by MMA Associate Editor Mitch Evich
