NFPA Journal - Fall 2023 - 35

Even so, there are several federal, state, and local
efforts underway designed to reverse the trend of
rising response times. Among the most notable is an
attempt to modernize the nation's 911 infrastructure
to what's called " Next Generation 911, " or NG911.
The idea is to replace the old analog systems-which
have been in place since the 1970s in much of the
country-with a faster, more resilient digital system
that " allows voice, photos, videos and text messages
to flow seamlessly from the public, " according to
the National 911 Program. In addition to being
faster and more versatile, the new infrastructure is
expected to help PSAPs manage call overload and
will be better at identifying caller location.
A 2018 federal report commissioned by Congress
found that implementing NG911 nationwide could
cost up to $12.7 billion and take at least a decade to
complete. Progress so far has been patchy at best.
In its 2021 " 911 Annual Report, " the National 911
Program found that 12 states reported that 100 percent
of their population is now covered by PSAPs
that have NG911 capability. Conversely, 11 states
report that none of their population is covered by
NG911-capable PSAPs.
Another way that governments are working to
address the problem is by reshuffling resources
to try and gain more efficiencies and economies
of scale. In some cases, as in Bridgeton, Missouri,
smaller communities are closing local PSAPs and
paying larger communities or counties to take over
their dispatch. In other cases, states and counties
are incentivizing, or even mandating, that smaller
PSAPs consolidate to form a single larger one. But
there are obstacles to that strategy as well.
In Arkansas, the state legislature passed a bill in
2019 mandating that certain city and county PSAPs
merge, and tied funding to their compliance. The
goal was to save money and increase efficiencies by
reducing the state's 114 PSAPs to no more than 77.
As recently as last year, however, there were still 100
PSAPs in the state due to unforeseen delays and the
challenges inherent in the consolidation process. In
Hot Springs, Arkansas, for instance, city and county
officials have resisted consolidating their two separate
PSAPs into a single PSAP, arguing that their
combined call volumes warrant two facilities. There
have also been incompatibility issues between the city
and county's computer-aided dispatch, Hot Springs
City Manager Bill Burrough told the city directors
last October. " A truly monumental effort would have
to take place, and somebody's going to lose their call
history, " Burrough said. " There's no bridge between
the two. "
For a brief period, it appeared that privatization
might be one solution to PSAP woes, but
there doesn't appear to be much movement in that
direction, Fuller said. Of the 1.2 million records he
analyzed in the Foundation study, just 10 percent
were from PSAPs owned by private or independent
agencies, and " their ability to answer the calls in
the appropriate time frames were the worst out of
all of the agencies, " he said. " I don't see any trend
toward privatization, mostly because I think they're
looking at the situation and saying, 'We can't make
money on this.' "
Meanwhile, the NFPA 1225 committee will be
looking at the findings from the Foundation study
to see what revisions it might make to the standard
around call answering and processing times. With
so few PSAPs seemingly able to meet the requirements-and
no scientific evidence that the specific
metrics outlined in the standard are vital for adequate
performance-there may be arguments made
to ease the time frame to allow more PSAPs the
chance to comply.
" The technical committee will go back and review
this and decide what should be changed. I don't think
you ever want a goal that's unachievable because
people won't try to follow the standard and these
agencies won't strive for it, " Fuller said. By spending
to achieve unreasonable time benchmarks, he said,
" you're costing your community additional money
that otherwise could be spent on more ambulances
and more fire trucks. But if the standard is reasonable,
then we need to help provide those agencies
with a way to accomplish that task. "
There is one takeaway that the Foundation study
does make abundantly clear: " The thing we know
for sure is there should be future research into this, "
Fuller said. " And we need to communicate this to
the public because most people just don't understand
how this works. If people don't know there's
a problem, there won't be the will to try to find a
solution for it. "
JESSE ROMAN is senior editor of NFPA Journal and host of
the NFPA Podcast.
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