[Dispatch] Out Of Service Units

[Brooks, William]

All CAFCA Members,

I am requesting that anytime you have a unit that is unstaffed such as a reserve engine, ladder, boat etc. that you log it off duty instead of placing the unit out of service. A good rule of thumb would be if you are not using the unit for over 12 hours log it off duty or ask dispatch for assistance.

This request does not apply to the way we model brush trucks for response. These units should be left in a reserve status. Only those units that a crew would move into if their regular apparatus went out of service are affected. We are seeing more and more departments placing these reserve apparatus into an out of service status and it makes it much harder for the dispatchers to evaluate who is OOS for  a short duration such as training, vehicle exchanges, radio repairs etc. There are also CAD performance reasons we need you to do this:






Date


January 21, 2013


Advisory #


TA13-01


Subject


Unit Sharing in CAD


Affected Versions


All



Description



Historically, CAD administrators of sites that utilize Initial Assignment Recommendations have been instructed to share units with all jurisdictions and divisions for the ease of unit recommendation for all types of responses. It was common to only restrict sharing when units should be limited from responding to a particular jurisdiction or division.



In the current and previous versions of CAD, the system considers all on duty, shared units as the first step in the initial assign process. When a large number of units are on duty and shared to a jurisdiction, it is possible to cause significant delay in the CAD returning a recommendation. This can be corrected though minimizing the sharing rules in place by assuring that all units not required to remain on duty are placed off duty.



Recommended Actions



The CAD development team will be working to address this in future versions. However, the following actions should be taken if you are experiencing slower than normal initial assign recommendations, or longer recommendations in areas with many units under consideration.

*         Share units with only the area where they are to be selected for assignment in a response plan or via the "Add Resource" button. If the CAD will not be expected to automatically present the user with that unit at any time, the unit does not need to be shared.

*         Place unstaffed units off duty rather than leave them on duty or Out of Service

I request that you assist us in our efforts to better serve you.

Thanks,

Captain William B. Brooks
Austin Fire Department - 911/Communications
4201 Ed Bluestein Blvd.
Austin, TX 78721
Phone: (512) 974-0407

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