Fire Dispatch Notifications via Text Messaging

In emergency response, every second counts, and response numbers matter. For volunteer firefighters, who are in or around their homes and throughout the district, receiving timely dispatch notifications is essential for ensuring a swift and effective response.

Traditionally, these notifications have been sent via pagers or radios, but increasingly it is more convenient (and cost effective) for firefighters to just have their mobile phone on them, especially when volunteers are going about their business throughout the district.

Forwarding CAD emails to a group of firefighters can help, however leveraging text messaging provides quicker access to more volunteers, even those without a smart phone.

This article explores how to leverage messaging APIs to send dispatch notifications directly to volunteer firefighters' mobile phones via text messaging (aka SMS, or MMS or even RCS these days.)

Some volunteer firefighters appreciate text message dispatch notifications above other forms of communication

Volunteer firefighters are everyday people, and people have their personal preferences. Text messaging is the communications preference for many mobile phone users. If they use text messaging all day and night for family and perhaps business, then they are comfortable monitoring their text messages. Sometimes this is what they want most, and providing this dispatch option fills a gap.

Understanding the Challenge

Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems, at a 911 dispatch center, are the starting point of emergency response coordination. When an incident occurs, the CAD system generates dispatch notifications, typically sent via radio signal to pagers / radios to relevant personnel, including your volunteer firefighters. Traditionally volunteer firefighters carried radios and/or pagers, but this leads to wear and tear on the devices, and the firefighter. Emailing smart devices helps, but many firefighters are not email users. Email to text message gateways exist, where emails are converted to a text message and delivered as a text message, but they are unreliable and increasingly too slow for response notification.

However, both pager / radio & even email notifications have limitations:

• Expensive: Pagers and Radios are expensive, and few (if any) departments can afford these devices for all their firefighters.
• Accessibility Issues: Pagers and Radios are not always within earshot.

Even email notifications have limitations:

• Accessibility Issues: Firefighters may not have access to their email when they are needed most.
• Delayed Delivery: Emails may not be checked immediately, leading to delays in response.
• Information Overload: Important dispatch details can get lost in full email boxes.

The Text Messaging Solution

Text Messaging systems ( like Twilio, as a good example ) provide a communications platform that enables developers to easily build SMS, MMS, and RCS messaging applications. By integrating text messaging systems with your CAD system, you can automate the process of sending dispatch notifications directly to volunteer firefighters' mobile phones.

Implementation Steps

1. Set up a Text Message (e.g. Twilio) Account:
   • Create an account and purchase a A2P 10DLC (see below) phone number capable of sending text messages.
2. Configure Your CAD System:
   • Work with your dispatch center, or CAD vendor to configure the system to send dispatch notifications to a designated email address.
3. Create a Script or Application:
   • Develop a script (e.g., using Python, PHP, or any other language your email service can invoke) that:
     • Monitors the designated email address for incoming dispatch notifications.
     • Extracts relevant information from the email (e.g., incident location, type, and priority).
     • Uses the Text Messaging API to send an SMS message containing the dispatch information to the volunteer firefighters' mobile numbers.
4. Test and Deploy:
   • Thoroughly test your script or application to ensure it functions correctly.
   • Deploy the solution and monitor its performance.
5. Continuous Feedback:
   • Work with your firefighters to ensure they are getting the text messages they want.
   • Check in from time to time because firefighters change carriers, get new numbers, and often forget to mention this.
   • Keep the list of numbers up to date with new recruits.

What is A2P 10DLC? Why do I care?

If you go the route of text messaging your firefighters, you’ll need to address “A2P 10DLC” - Application to Person 10 digit long code - a US standard to protect consumers from being spammed. This adds a bit of work and time to your setup, but it is necessary for good deliverability. Text message providers attempt to make this easier for you, but it isn’t for the faint of heart.

 

    Learn about A2P 10DLC

Benefits of Text Message Dispatch Notifications

• Improved Accessibility: Volunteers can receive notifications on their mobile phones, even when they are away from their radios, pagers & computers.
• Faster Response Times: SMS messages are delivered almost instantly, ensuring volunteers receive notifications promptly.
• Enhanced Communication: SMS messages can be concise and focused, providing essential dispatch information without unnecessary clutter.
• Increased Reliability: SMS messages are less likely to be filtered as spam compared to emails.

Is this for you?

Setting up your own text messaging system is doable for volunteer fire departments, with some initial startup of time & effort. It is not inexpensive in ongoing messaging costs (dependant upon your number of members, and number of calls) but once set up, the ongoing effort is minimal.

If your firefighters want text message dispatch notifications, this might be a solution you chose to deploy.

Do It Yourself

We’ve created a number of do-it-yourself technologies for dispatch, for response and for other benefits. I’ll share them as do-it-yourself technology.

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