Vector Security Helps Cincinnati Implement ASAP-to-PSAP
Vector Security assisted with implementation in Cincinnati by helping to conduct extensive testing prior to the system going live.
Cincinnati — The City of Cincinnati is the latest agency to implement Automated Secure Alarm Protocol (ASAP), aligning it with the rest of Hamilton County, Ohio which went live with the protocol in July.
ASAP is technology that automates communication between alarm monitoring central stations and Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs)/911 centers.
The protocol was developed in partnership between The Monitoring Association (TMA) and the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO), with Vector Security
President and CEO Pam Petrow co-chairing the committee. Vector Security was the first alarm company to debut ASAP in Richmond, VA in 2012.
Vector Security assisted with implementation in Cincinnati by helping to conduct extensive testing prior to the system going live.
“We are pleased to be able to reduce call processing times to provide quicker and more accurate emergency response to Vector Security customers in the area who are served out of our local Cincinnati branch,” says Anita Ostrowski, vice president, central station services, Vector Security. “As a security provider, we continue to actively seek ways to promote ASAP’s value to municipalities and public agencies, and help other alarm companies implement it for the greater good of the industry, as well as for the increased safety of our communities.”
With ASAP, alarm users in Cincinnati will benefit from faster, more accurate emergency response. Electronic data transmission results in the following benefits for alarm users and first responders:
- Less phone calls to emergency response centers. Alarm center data is passed to public safety dispatch/911 operators electronically within seconds and then provided to first responders upon dispatch.
- Quicker processing times. Data doesn’t have to be input manually or communicated verbally, resulting in reduced hold times, less chance of human error, and faster responses.
- Greater accuracy of information transmitted. Electronic transmission of data reduces chances for errors.
With ASAP delivering alarm notification information directly from central stations to public safety answering points and public safety dispatch centers via computer rather than by phone, all pertinent data goes directly to first responders and the process takes only about five seconds. Many agencies using ASAP can expect alarm response times to potentially drop to as little as a minute and a half or less.
According to Bill Hobgood, the consultant who managed the Cincinnati ASAP implementation, “Cincinnati emergency communications officials are thrilled with the ASAP go-live. The day after we went live, an area of Cincinnati experienced a power outage that normally would have resulted in a barrage of calls coming into the call-taking queue from alarm companies calling in alarms via telephone. But because ASAP completely bypasses the call-taking process with no telephones involved, there was no backlog the following morning during this outage. One official noted that the ASAP implementation was one of the smoothest projects implemented at the city of Cincinnati’s ECC.”
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