Roswell Firefighters Can Respond Quicker To Emergency Calls With New Tracker

ROSWELL, GA — The Roswell Fire Department will be able to respond quicker now that its 911 Center is using a GPS tracker to dispatch the closest emergency response vehicle to a caller’s location.

The department said in a news release Monday that it’s utilizing Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) dispatching, which uses the emergency vehicle’s GPS location, so dispatchers in the Roswell 911 Emergency Communications Center can identify and dispatch the closest, most appropriate emergency response vehicle to a call.

Before the upgrade, the Roswell 911 Center would send a fire truck or ambulance from the closest station to the call for service, according to the release. They said that in some cases, the emergency vehicle assigned to a station would be out or returning from another emergency call. This new change reduces response time, they said.

On Feb. 28, City Council approved an “Automatic Aid Agreement” between the City of Roswell and the Cities of Alpharetta, Milton, Sandy Springs, and Johns Creek. This will help reduce response times in North Fulton by using the Automatic Vehicle Location dispatch to send the closest emergency response vehicle to a call for service, regardless of jurisdictional boundaries, said the Roswell Fire Department.

This was achieved through the joint efforts of staff from the City's Fire Department, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Division, Information Technology Division, and the 911 Emergency Communications Center.