By Eva Ruth Moravec, San Antonio Express-News
San Antonio, Texas — When the San Antonio Police Department’s portion of a new multi-agency communication system went live at 6 a.m. Sunday, it was hardly noticeable to casual listeners.

But for police officers, sheriff’s deputies, Schertz first responders and San Antonio firefighters, the change was monumental.

All four agencies are now connected to the $19 million Alamo Regional Public Safety System, a computer-aided dispatch system, or CAD, that allows them to share more information faster. Funded by the agencies themselves and a federal grant, it has been in the works for three years.

TriTech Software Systems got a $16 million contract to create it in 2008. An additional $3.1 million went for agency expenses such as staff and infrastructure, said Steve Gaffigan, assistant director of the city’s information technology department.

“It makes the city safer, and it makes officers safer as well,” said police Chief William McManus prior to the launch. “We were working off a 30-year-old, antiquated system,”

Dispatchers can now specify what resources are required at certain calls — Tasers, rifles, SWAT officers — and find out who has them nearby. They can pass information to officers en route to a call via any of 600 car-mounted laptops. Officers can use the laptops to get the call history at an address or search a database of suspects and arrests.

Previously scheduled for Aug. 8 and postponed to resolve potential problems, Sunday’s rollout was deemed a success.

In next year’s budget proposal, city officials have requested seven police officers and four firefighters with an IT background to be trained to maintain the system, Gaffigan said.

Mike Helle, president of the San Antonio Police Officers Association, had been concerned in August that the department was trying to push the system through when modems in many of the laptops weren’t connecting. The extra month allowed for much-needed tweaks, he said.

The upgrade affected all 2,000 officers, who had to choose new passwords before logging in. Gaffigan and SAPD dedicated two radio channels for technical support, put technicians at substations and opened a help line.

“Sunday went surprisingly smooth. We expected there to be problems, but we ran into very few,” Gaffigan said.

Besides sharing real-time information on incidents, suspects and victims, the CAD gets the word out faster when agencies depend on each other for assistance.

About three weeks ago, SAPD officers in a slow pursuit of robbery suspects needed spikes to stop a car, which police don’t carry but deputies do, said Robert Adelman, the public safety communications manager for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office. With deputies already using the CAD, “the dispatch center could quickly determine who had spikes and get those units responding,” he said.

The pursuit ended before the spikes arrived, but the incident proved the system’s efficiency, Adelman said – dispatchers no longer have to ask who is nearby and whether they have spikes.

“We’re glad that our brothers in blue are now online so we can share our information more collaboratively,” he said.

In order to secure a $6 million Bexar Metro 9-1-1 District grant, the project had to be regional, so Schertz – situated in Comal, Guadalupe and Bexar counties – was asked to join. Schertz didn’t have to pay for it initially but will budget about $200,000 annually for its upkeep, spokesman Brad Bailey said.

“We’re the regional partner, and we know that we’re benefiting massively from a lot of other entities’ hard work,” Bailey said.

Schertz EMS and SAFD are the only two agencies using TriTech’s automated dispatching function, which uses a computerized voice. An actual person answers the 9-1-1 calls, and a computer then decides which unit to send.

San Antonio Professional Firefighters Association president Chris Steele said some problems still exist; a feature that requires call takers to ask a series of questions about victims’ symptoms and medical conditions is unnecessary and causes delays, he said. He said he’s requested records to determine if paramedics and emergency responders are taking longer to reach victims.

Tom McEwen, director of research at the Institute for Law and Justice based in Alexandria, Va., said systems like the regional CAD have become common over the past 20 years.

“This is probably the most important system in a police department, because it’s controlling everything in the field,” he said. “This is where you spend your money.”

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