REPORT - CITY OF EL SEGUNDO COMMUNICATIONS CENTER

 

RECOMMENDATION

Staff recommends that Council:

1. Receive and file the report on El Segundo Dispatch Center.

 

BACKGROUND

In the fall of 1999, the City of El Segundo approached the City of Hermosa Beach with the offer to provide police and fire dispatching services. At that time the Hermosa Beach Police Department operated a dispatch center in the police department building that provided police, fire, parking and animal control dispatching services. Staff carefully reviewed the El Segundo proposal and recommended to Council in the spring of 2000 to establish a contract with the City of El Segundo to provide dispatching services. A contract was signed with services to commence in the fiscal 2000/2001 year.

In August of 2000, the new El Segundo Communications Center became fully operational and began providing dispatch services to Hermosa Beach. Of the five (5) dispatchers that were apart of the Hermosa Beach Communications Center, four (4) of these individuals were hired by the City of El Segundo. The fifth dispatcher was retained within the police department to work as a police service officer (PSO). To date, the El Segundo Communications Center has hired 3 Dispatch Supervisors and 12 Dispatchers.

The transition into the new Communications Center in El Segundo was seamless and problem free with the exception of a few minor technical issues that were addressed and rectified. The broadcast equipment (repeaters, base stations, antennas) utilized by the old Hermosa Beach Communications Center were simply connected by phone line to the new center in El Segundo. The City’s broadcast equipment has continued to function properly. The 911 emergency telephone lines were switched from the old center to the new one and they have functioned properly as well.

El Segundo Police Department organized a users group for the police and fire departments. Meetings are held monthly and El Segundo has been very responsive to any problems and complaints that have been brought to their attention.

The new Communications Center in El Segundo is a well-funded, well-constructed, state of the art facility utilizing new generation communications technology. One of the benefits of this new partnership is the access to this new technology without the costs of expensive upgrades that the Hermosa Beach Center would ultimately have to go through. The contract costs for the El Segundo Communications Center will remained unchanged from the FY 00/01 through the FY 01/02.

In March of 2002, a new assessment based upon the total calls for service for calendar year 2001 will determine the contract costs for the FY 02/03 fiscal year. Additionally, the City of Hermosa Beach has not been charged for the months of July and August 2000 since the new center did not become operational until August. This is a savings of $71,000 for the current fiscal year

While cost savings was certainly an important factor in deciding to change over to El Segundo, the main concern by Council and Staff was how response times would be affected. Staff has reviewed response times through reports provided by El Segundo Police. The El Segundo Communications Center set a goal of answering 911 calls and the 7 digit emergency calls within 2 rings or under 10 seconds. For the period of October through December 2000, the El Segundo dispatchers achieved a success rate of 99%. The average ring time for 911 calls was 3 seconds and the average ring time for all calls was 4 seconds. By comparison, the Hermosa Beach Dispatch Center during the sample month of November 1999 answered 97.95% of its 911 calls in less than 11 seconds. During another sample month of February 2000, 99.06% of its 911 calls were answered in less than 11 seconds. This response time to the answering of incoming emergency call traffic is exceptional and demonstrates that the El Segundo Communications Center is operating at the same level of efficiency as the old communications center.

The Police Staff also collected information on the processing time between the answering of a Hermosa Beach call for service in the dispatch center until the time that call was dispatched to field units. A comparison was done between the periods of October – December of 1999 when the Hermosa Beach Communications Center was still in operation and the same period one year later, October – December 2000 for the new El Segundo Communications Center.

For all calls for service received during October through December 1999, the Hermosa Beach center received and dispatched 91.9% of its calls to field units within 2 minutes. During this same time period in 2000, the El Segundo center received and dispatched 90.2% of the total calls received to field units within 2 minutes.

For all Priority 1 calls (these are highest priority type calls signifying crimes in progress and other types of serious calls) during the period of October – December 1999, the Hermosa Beach Center received and dispatched an average of 94.1% of its calls within 2 minutes. The El Segundo center in 2000 (same time period) received and dispatched an average of 91.6% of all Priority 1 calls within 2 minutes.

Based upon these reports, the Police Staff is pleased with the performance of the new El Segundo facility. Separate from the statistical analysis, the best barometer of a service is the satisfaction of the customer. The police department is very satisfied with the performance of the new El Segundo Communications facility.

A seamless transition was anticipated and that in fact did occur. It is quite remarkable and truly a compliment to the El Segundo Police Department staff that the new Communications Center has performed as well as it has considering that El Segundo does not have prior experience in operating a dispatch facility. Staff anticipates a continued high quality performance and delivery of services by the new communications center.

 

FIRE DEPARTMENT

The following report represents a comparative "snapshot" examining a sample

3-month period of operations of the El Segundo Communications Center with previous statistics from Hermosa Beach dispatch services. The report focuses

on fire department activity and uses "Dispatch Time" and "Total Response Time" as the variables.

Dispatch Time is the time that begins from the point of receipt of the emergency alarm at the public safety answering point to the point where sufficient inform-

ation is known to the dispatcher and applicable units are notified of the emergency.

During October through December 1999, the Hermosa Beach center's Dispatch Times for all calls for service were under 2 minutes 98.3% of the time. The El Segundo Center in 2000, for the same 3-month comparative time period, Dispatch Times for all calls for service were under 2 minutes 95% of the time.

(HB1999-257 calls for service), ES2000-322 calls for serivice.)

Total Response Time is the time that begins from the point of receipt of the emergency alarm at the public safety answering point and ends with the arrival at the scene of the emergency incident.

During October through December 1999, the Hermosa Beach Total Response Times for all calls for service were under 5 minutes 80.2% of the time. The El Segundo Center in 2000, for the same 3-month comparative time period, Total Response Times for all calls for service were under 5 minutes 79.1% of the time.

(HB1999-186 calls for service) (ES2000-239 calls for service.)

The Fire Staff is pleased with the over-all performance of the Ell Segundo Communications Center, considering the fact that El Segundo has no prior experience operating a dispatch facility, and will continue to monitor their performance.

Both the Dispatch Time and Total Response Time studies in this report encompass all calls for service which include, EMS, investigations, and

those considered as other non-priority assignments.

Only incidents with both time stamps were subject to this analysis.