The vintage 1990s computers and cathode ray tube television screens are gone, and in their place is a fully functional, state of the art communications turret, with another right next to it.
Flatscreen shared monitors, fiber optic links to dozens of traffic cameras throughout the township, and realtime access to township, county and state records systems are just a few of the features in the Montgomery Township Police Department’s new communications center.
“Before, we just had our primary township radio network, and now with the county radio network we have the ability to monitor both, and have it duplicated at both turrets,” said MTPD Lt. William Peoples.
“When you have an emergency, you can run two dispatchers with two totally different scenes,” he said.
The township’s board of supervisors included funding for a communication center upgrade in the township’s 2012 police department budget, and work started roughly two and a half months ago on removing computers and cathode ray tube monitors that had been in use since 1996, the last time the communications center was upgraded.
In their place are two turrets, one for everyday police dispatches and another for emergency use, each features three flatscreen monitors — one each for the department’s records management system, for dispatches from Montgomery County’s Department of Public Safety and for interface with state police if need be — for dispatchers like Jo Ann Pearson to keep an eye on.
“I love it. What we had in here was antiquated, even though we moved into the building in 1995. Everything’s a little more labor intensive, but with the upgrades everything’s at your fingertips, the equipment runs faster, it’s just great,” she said.
Directly next to the township police turret that Pearson monitors all day, a second similar turret provides the same information for emergency responders. It hasn’t happened yet this year, but Rick Lesniak, the township’s Emergency Management Coordinator as well as Director of Fire Services, says the second turret will be used for information gathering if an emergency takes place.
“This side of the console is going to be used to coordinate the emergency management activities from the field. The emergency responders, police, fire, EMS, Public Works, everything will come in through here,” he said.
“If, say, the fire company needs an ambulance to go to a certain location they’ll be able to just radio right in, and the person sitting in this console will be able to coordinate all of those resources,” Lesniak said.
And not just township resources. While decisions at a policy level will be made from another emergency operations center, the communications turret will be able to gather data and link communications with departments throughout the five county region in case an incident in Montgomery Township requires some sort of specialized equipment or personnel from Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester or Delaware as well as Montgomery counties.
“It’s like a huge emergency management phone book that you can research for emergency contact information. If you need lumber, backhoes, or certain specialty equipment, it’s all in that software,” Lesniak said.
“We’ll be able to get communications from the field, giving us the field conditions back here so that we know how to plan and react from a higher policy level,” he said.
What’s the fastest way to get that equipment and personnel to the scene if an accident takes out, say, the township’s Five Points intersection? Dispatchers can now check PennDOT cameras at various intersections throughout the township on a wall-mounted flatscreen monitor, which show real-time traffic footage from the township’s busiest intersections.
“We’ll be getting a straight feed from PennDOT, straight through their servers, so we’re going to be able to see all of Montgomery Township at one time,” Peoples said.
“If there’s an accident or something like that, you’ll be able to tell the tow truck driver ‘We’re looking at it, come from this area because 309 southbound is backed up, you might want to go a different say,’” he said.
Those feeds are currently provided by PennDOT through a standard internet broadcast, but fiber optic connections directly from the PennDOT signal network into the station are in the works, Peoples said.
Shared between the police turret and the emergency turret are two additional monitors, one a larger version of the other: both show real time feeds from more than two dozen cameras in and around the township police station itself, which can be used to keep an eye on troublemakers from cars parked outside, through the station’s hallways and into meeting rooms and holding cells.
“If a police car brings a prisoner in, you’ll see them come into the sally port, inside the sally port, then you’ll be able to see them go down the hallway right into the cells themselves,” Peoples said.
Those digital cameras can pan and zoom in to read license plates or capture gestures from inside the cells, and footage from all is saved on hard drives for up to three months if court proceedings require any footage.
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