Ventura County Fire Department Upgrades CAD System with AirLink PinPoint X

The Ventura County Fire Department responds to a wide variety of emergencies, including medical emergencies, traffic accidents, land and water rescue and myriad everyday public-service requests. The dedicated team of 560 men and women responds to more than 30,000 incidents a year, and the county’s response area covers 848 square miles, serving more than 480,000 people in unincorporated areas of Ventura County and six of its cities.

Challenges

Ventura County Fire Department began to replace its obsolete computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system as well as entire refresh of their communications system including a new state-of-the-art Fire Communications Center (FCC) with progressive mobile data capabilities.

With the Ventura Co. FCC dispatching resources for all but one of the county’s municipal fire departments, the county’s need for reliable equipment is critical. In addition to new CAD, radio and telephone dispatch systems within the center, mobile computers and global positioning system (GPS) modems were also installed in each of the 125 vehicles in the system — including fire trucks, ambulances and EMS vehicles. However, soon after deployment, the department began seeing connectivity issues.

After several attempts to deduce the connectivity issue, including having the GPS modem vendor on-site to inspect the units, Ventura Co. decided to trial Sierra Wireless’ AirLink™ PinPoint X intelligent in-vehicle gateway.

Solution

The team began by testing the AirLink PinPoint X devices at two stations, where the fire department was experiencing the most signal problems. The wireless AirLink PinPoint X in-vehicle gateways are tethered to an in-vehicle mobile computer and integrated into the FCC’s CAD system, allowing dispatch and vehicle operators to utilize GPS mapping software to quickly and easily locate vehicles in the field.

After a successful test and pilot Ventura County deployed 135 devices to replace all previous GPS units remaining in the mobile data system, and expand to additional vehicles as necessary.  “The AirLink device management tools definitely made the process easier for us,” said Tom Guerrero Network Specialist III at the County of Ventura, whose team used the ACEmanager configuration tool to initiate and program the PinPoint X devices.

The Ventura County Fire Department’s mobile data solution using Sierra Wireless’ AirLink PinPoint X gateways provided the following benefits:

• Reliable connectivity – ALEOS intelligence provides “always-on” and “always-aware” connectivity required for critical mobile data applications
• Rugged form factor – MIL-STD 810 certified for high performance in the harshest of environmental conditions
• Enhanced emergency services – GPS tracking provides ability to dispatch first response vehicles based on location and availability to reduce response time