The North Carolina State Highway Patrol says rescue call responses have become a lot quicker, and safety has been improved -- all thanks to a new GPS system upgrade that will more quickly connect 911 callers to the nearest state trooper.
The $11 million project was funded with money from the federal American Rescue Plan Act after a decade of searching for the right replacements.
The highway patrol's previous computer-aided design (CAD) dispatch was decades old and was on the brink of shutting down permanently, so it was a perfect time for this necessary funding to come through.
Though 911 calls have had track abilities for decades, not all agencies are able to use the resource, according to 1st Sgt. Chris Knox, N.C. State Highway Patrol public information officer.
“When I tell you that we were operating on an antiquated system, that is the understatement of the year," Knox said Wednesday, Jan. 31. "We were relying so much on what people could tell us. Now, our system has that capability as well."
“Sharing information between the 911 centers and our centers and our center to the member they are out in the field.”
Knox said this will greatly help lighten the workload of 911 dispatchers so they can answer more calls instead of trying to help troopers track individuals.
This new CAD system will not only share the real time information of caller to troopers, but it will also alert troopers to any nearby obstacles they could face on the way there with the updated mapping system.
The tracking systems of this CAD upgrade are already being used to serve the public but the full systems, including administrative services, will be completed by 2025.
STORY & PHOTO COURTESY OF ABC 13 WLOSNC State Highway Patrol improves rescue response times with $11M GPS upgrade | WLOS
