Collier County (Fla.) has two separate 9-1-1 emergency call and dispatch centers — the Collier County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) Center and and the City of Naples Center. There are nine separate fire districts in Collier County.

The city’s 9-1-1 center receives emergency calls, obtains and enters the needed information into the Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system and dispatches the city police and/or city fire/rescue vehicles.

If a Collier County Emergency Medical Services ambulance is required, the call is transferred to the CCSO 9-1-1 Center, to dispatch the EMS ambulance.

The CCSO 9-1-1 Center receives emergency calls, enters the information, and dispatches all the EMS ambulances, and the fire/rescue vehicles for the other eight fire districts and Marco Island Police plus the sheriff within the entire county.

The city CAD system records the location of the city fire vehicles. The CCSO CAD system records the location of the other eight fire district vehicles and all the EMS ambulances.

The CCSO 9-1-1 Center dispatches the closest available appropriate station, vehicle(s) and personnel to the incident location, regardless of the jurisdiction borders of the eight other fire districts. This is called “automatic aid.”

This dispatching protocol is standard among eight of the nine fire districts in Collier County. With 68 percent of all fire district 9-1-1 calls being medical-related and when minutes and seconds count, automatic aid can be critical — literally a matter of life and death.

This type of “automatic aid” differs from “mutual aid.” The former is based on agreements among the various fire districts, which are a party to the agreement “automatically.” The latter, “mutual aid,” happens after the fire district having jurisdiction determines they need additional help. Then they make the request of other fire districts for help. This type of “mutual aid” is standard procedure in the entire country with all first responder organizations.

“Automatic aid” agreements are in place with eight local fire districts, except the City of Naples. Why?

Since the city has its own CAD software and computer system, and the rest of the county is on the CCSO CAD software and computer system, the CCSO Dispatch Center cannot automatically query the location and availability of city fire/rescue vehicles, and the City Dispatch Center cannot automatically query the availability of NNFD or East Naples Fire/rescue vehicles. So “automatic dispatching” cannot occur by either center.

But upon completing an extensive study, the sheriff has signed a contract to upgrade his application software to state-of-the-art CAD hardware and software. The City of Naples Fire, Police and Information Technology personnel, participated with the CCSO evaluation team.

On March 5, the City Council voted 7-0 to join with CCSO 9-1-1 in the implementation of this new CAD software. The city fire and police and sheriff’s personnel will work together to determine any unique requirements during implementation. Upon cutover, the city dispatchers will work off the same hardware/software platform as the CCSO dispatchers.

The city dispatchers will be able to see exactly where are the closest, available, appropriate vehicles, and the CCSO will be able to do the same for the city vehicles.

With the appropriate city and county fire district management agreements and procedures in place, the city will be able to join with the other eight fire districts and EMS to allow the dispatchers to send the closest available vehicles and personnel.

Who benefits?

The people and businesses on both sides of the city and North Naples border, and the city and East Naples border, needing a first responder to arrive in the shortest possible time when minutes and seconds count.

The taxpayer benefits by not having to maintain duplicate incompatible CAD systems.

Once the technology is installed, all that remains are management agreements.