Next Generation 911 (NextGen) rollout?

[ChrisDonohue__GISP]

next gen 911‌addressing##911 addressing

At the local GIS Users group meeting a few days ago there was a presentation on Next Generation 911, how it will differ from the current system, and that it is hoped to be implemented by the year 2020 in the United States and Canada.  I do addressing for a medium-sized city, so am curious how this will roll down to my level, since I am not directly involved in response but the response folks do use the addresses I assign.  Since NextGen 911 will be directly using municipalities centerline GIS data instead of phone company records, this caught my attention.

So some beginner questions:

• Is the project on track for 2020 in all areas?
• Has anyone fully implemented NextGen 911 already?
• What level of effort does it typically require municipalities to update their centerline data so it works with surrounding municipalities in NextGen 911?
• What level of effort is anticipated once the centerline data is in use in NextGen 911 to do the ongoing maintenance?  Is it expected to require extra staffing?
• Is it expected that address points will be a requirement in the near future (sounds like they are not required in the current implementation)?
• Have municipalities and call centers (PSAP) been able to get funding to help implement NextGen 911?  Organizational funding?  Grants?
• If you have worked on this, any insight on issues that have come up?
• Also, on the legislative side, is there a mandate that specifies when the system must be in place?  Or is it voluntary at this point?

Chris Donohue, GISP

[JoeBorgione]

I shy away from any 'dummy' data; it's hard enough to keep the integrity of a database solid, trustworthy, and defendable in court just to compromise it with phony or questionable data.  I've done it, but I sure don't consider it best practice....

[ChrisDonohue__GISP]

jborgion :

If I can ask, what are the aspects of addressing that need to make it "defendable in court"?  Is that particular to 911 Response issues?  Or are there other legal responsibilities/liabilities that come with addressing?

Chris Donohue, GISP

[JoeBorgione]

I've never had a problem personally, but I can remember a call several  years back when a house caught on fire. The responding units who were enroute to the 'address' provided by the CAD could see the smoke from across the valley (a number of miles, maybe 10 or so).  The house burned to the ground.  I never really new how it was settled.  That happened just before I came on.  In another case in another county, a caller had a medical issue where he couldn't articulate his location clearly.  It was something about him saying ###50 and the dispatcher entering ###15 or vice versa (fifty vs fifteen).  That one did not end well.

Here's the deal, and I've probably mentioned this before:  it's 2016 in the United States of America and when someone calls 9-1-1, they expect the person answering the phone to know where they are.  Personally, I don't think that's asking too much, but if things do go wrong, and people are hurt, lives lost, or property destroyed, you can bet the lawyers will be looking for the deepest pockets they can find.  And even if there is no negligence proven, it will still cost a ton of money, and cause a lot of grief. 

Having a paper trail (aka meta data) for your data is a pretty good idea.  For example, I use the address data provided by the County and the addresses are assigned to a parcel which of course is recorded.  If the person calling provides an address that he or she "has been using for years" and it doesn't resolve, and I have the recorded address in my database, you better believe that's an Ace I'm going to play before things end up in court, and hopefully shows due diligence on my part.  Just the other day a business owner complained that "9-1-1 can never find my address". Guess what?!  The city changed the name of the street quite some time ago, its recorded as such and the correct street name is on his business license. I don't know, maybe he didn't get the memo, but I'm golden.  Same goes for common names.  I'll get the request- "And I like to spell it like this, but he likes to spell like that and she spells it entirely different...."   Not gonna happen; I use what's on the sign out front.  

I subscribe to a couple universal philosophies: First and foremost;  Happy wife, happy life.  K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) and PTA (Protect thine @$$)

[TychoGranville]

Yes, it's a horrible practice. Creating a dummy point was a workaround we had to come up with fairly quickly as the sub- addressed points were creating issues with real calls. As soon as the dispatch software can deal with sub-addresses I will remove the dummy points from our database (and archive them elsewhere).