Text-to 9-1-1 Considerations
PSAP Policy Considerations:
1. Max number of texts to be handled:
a. National DV hotline does no more than 2.
b. Division of National Crisis Line in King County does no more than 4 (usually no more
than 3).
c. Both have dedicated people, who do not answer phones, they do texts and chats.
2. What to do about a non-responsive texter or texters
3. Text in different languages- how do you want to handle and know how you can
4. Garble- this could be text in a foreign language or pocket texts or someone playing
5. When using the line “Can you safely make a voice call to 911” what is the follow up?
6. In regards to transfer do you announce or not- you need to understand how your transfers work
7. Details on transfer or relay between PSAPs regionally
8. Does the transferring PSAP remain on the text until everyone is ready to drop
9. Use of foreign languages
WAPCO/NENA considerations1. Should the chapter work on/ support legislation regarding misuse of 911?
Public Education considerations
1. Publicize that there will be staggered availability
2. Emergencies only
3. Clearly define what we want to receive in the initial text message:
o Location (including city/town) and the nature of the problem.
o This is an opportunity to merge the message of Know your Location message that Pub
Ed has been pushing forward.
4. Educate that the caller should make a voice call as the first/best option for us. Text if you have
no other choice
o Background noise, voice inflection, etc are important in 911 calls, missed in texts
5. Pull over to text in your emergency
Communications Subcommittee
1. Identify metrics that should be collected statewide to aid in the development of text
“answering” handling standards, work with coordinator and state office to develop collection
mechanism, review collected data.
2. Track deployments and report status to AC/Coordinators/PSAPS including which TCC each PSAP
has selected.
Training Considerations
1. The Best/Recommended Practices document needs to be finalized before all training
issues can be identified.
2. Advances and/or changes in Text to 9-1-1 technology will result in additional training issues.
(Foreign languages integration is an example.)
3. Engage the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community.
4. Collect samples of emergency text messages from the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Community.
5. Monthly training/testing should be considered along with unannounced training/testing
events.
6. Training on individual agency protocols/policies.
7. Change management training should occur concurrently to text training.
8. As an aside – our group thought the phrase “call if you can, text if you can’t” should be
incorporated into Best/Recommended Practices in place of the request to place a voice call.
Possibly also a public education message. (added note to statewide document - RK)
9. Autocorrect (Jimmy Kimmel text-to-911 clip).
Vendor Questions (sent to Intrado and TCS on 10/23/14- RK)
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Ask your CPE vendor if they have an integrated solution
Support MSRP (if not what is your timeline)
Meet NENA security standard 75-001
Historical data –
a. How long to do you keep it
b. How is it accessed
c. Where is it stored
How do you handle transferring of texts between PSAPs (and your roadmap on this issue)
How do you handle foreign languages – what, if any, do you support, do you have any interface
with 3rd party translation services
How is the pending queue sorted / viewed
Can multiple call takers participate in same text message discussion
Do you have any private chat between call takers in the psap
Smart911 interface
Can more than one call taker view message conversations
Do you have a mapping interface
Able to rebid locations – and how do you do it
Any CAD API, and if so with who already?
How are multiple message conversations viewed (cascaded, on top of each other)
16. Can we identify information about each conversation – say to prioritize them – make a note
about them so we can easily see what pending texts are emergency, non-emergency etc
17. Can you open multiple sessions at the same position at the same time
18. Any limit to number of conversations or sessions that can be open at the same time
19. How would you approach presenting texts received from multiple regions ; counties – can they
be flagged or noted in some way
20. Cost for the various solutions – licensing, maintenance, hardware, training
21. Will there be network monitoring needs
22. What functions receive a timestamp that we can see
23. Do you show a text that we sent was delivered (or not )
24. Any MIS services, analytics, measurement tools and reporting
25. Recorder interfaces that you work with now, or plan to and how
26. Programming of canned messages – PSAP customizable, how many can you do? Etc
27. Can you block a number (say they are a nuisance person)
28. Can you set up an Auto Answer for incoming texts
29. Is there any audible or visual alert that a text has been received
30. What happens if no one is logged into the system at the PSAP
31. How does the caller know if PSAP as closed the text session
32. How do you report and define all the data points, begin to end of conversation