Launch of Police, Fire Dispatch Upgrades For Everett and Snohomish County Delayed Again

For the past several weeks Everett Police Officers and Firefighters have been attending intensive training on an upgraded system for dispatching emergency responders to calls. Called the New World System it was to replace several older systems currently in use that are outdated. Working schedules were changed, extra staff was brought in to cover calls during training but problems have continued to crop up. The system was supposed to go live in 2012 but missed that deadline. Last fall it was announced that it would be ready in December but then was deemed not ready. A new date of June 9th was established for the system switch-over but today it was announced implementation will again be put off. Here is an excerpt from a letter released by what is called the New World System Unified Command, a group of police, fire, dispatch agency and corrections representatives overseeing system testing and launch.

The test results have concluded very clearly that our new system can carry our load during the busiest days. That said, we repeated a test three times yesterday where we simulated the user load of the busiest day, then created a single incident with between 70 to 140 units assigned. This combination resulted in slowness (latency) in performance for the mobile data computers. At times the latency was minor, but at other times it was 60 seconds or longer. Latency exists in any wireless system dependent on outside factors, like cellular coverage and other environmental variables, but ultimately we expect our core system performance to be stout and able to support load under the harshest conditions. Based on today’s results, the unified command group is recommending we place the countywide implementation on a brief hold so NWS can address this concern. The group believes NWS will successfully address this issue which will allow us to reschedule go-live for later this year.

The project for a new dispatch system for Everett and all of Snohomish County has been in the works since 2009. Everett has allocated millions of dollars for its share of the project so far. We’ll let you know when they hope to try again.