The City of Baltimore 9-1-1 has added another life-saving element to their call routing capabilities by successfully implementing NENA i3 policy-based 9-1-1 call routing.
What is policy-based 9-1-1 call routing?
Policy-based routing helps agencies to process 9-1-1 calls by allowing traffic to be routed based on factors set by the agency, improving the efficiency and accuracy of public safety application workflows. It offers agencies greater flexibility and control over call processing by allowing the call routing technology to remove unnecessary workload and manual intervention from telecommunicators. The result is time saved and telecommunicators being free to focus on providing the highest quality service to the 911 calls they answer.
Tenea Reddick, Director of 9-1-1 for the City of Baltimore, challenged her team to identify an opportunity that would encourage them to take advantage of policy-based routing and learn how to leverage its benefits. Wayne Harris, 911 Operations Manager for the Baltimore City Fire Department, decided that the Artscape Festival, which draws over 100,000 people, would be the ideal event to start with.
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The City of Baltimore uses VESTA 9-1-1 for their call handling system and implemented the 9-1-1 call routing service from Motorola Solutions in May 2024. The city receives about 1.4 million 9-1-1 calls a year.
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“What we did,” said Wayne, “was designate the geographic area, or polygon, that represents the location of the Artscape Festival and submitted that as GIS data to Motorola, coupled with the policy that would drive how 9-1-1 calls were routed.” To guarantee reliable and prompt responses to 9-1-1 calls from the Artscape Festival area without disrupting the PSAP’s standard operations, the team established a policy to route all calls originating within the designated polygon to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC).
Sam Bard, Director of Product Management at Motorola Solutions for NGCS, explained, “Once the 9-1-1 call is received, we obtain location. Once the system sees that the location falls inside the Festival area, then their policy is applied, and the calls route to the EOC.”
Wayne emphasized three critical aspects at the project’s outset: assembling the right team, understanding the capabilities and limitations, and rigorous testing. These were all achieved. Regarding the testing, he stated, “We simulated every conceivable scenario that might occur in the 9-1-1 center.”
The outcome was extremely successful. “We were excited about how it worked,” reported Wayne. “Now we know how to do it. We know the steps and we have bigger ideas to implement based on our success.”
Furthering education and understanding
Another positive outcome of the Artscape event was the exposure it gave the 9-1-1 center.
“We had two remote units set up in the EOC with three designated specialists (call takers) and one supervisor. The EOC had every possible city agency involved in Artscape to assist as needed,” said Wayne. “It was 9-1-1’s first time in a situation like this, and people were amazed. They didn’t know what our system looks like and how we handle calls. They realized we play a major role in helping to manage events, especially with our call routing capabilities.”
“What we did during Artscape is changing the game,” said Tenea. “Moving forward, we will have a seat in our EOC. And, now that we have implemented policy-based routing for this event, just imagine how far we can go with it.”
Taking public safety to the next level
“What we want to achieve,” said Tenea, “is making sure people feel safe. ‘I feel comfortable. I feel more relaxed knowing if I need to call 9-1-1, it’s going to get answered.’ We made it work, and we’re going to continue to be more efficient and effective and take public safety for the people in the City of Baltimore and beyond to a whole other level.” Wayne added, “In the end, we learned we’re definitely not limited by technology. We are only limited by the thought of what we can do.”
For more information on our 9-1-1 call routing service, visit us at motorolasolutions.com/callrouting.
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