Allegheny County and the City of Pittsburgh agreed to co-locate 911 services in 2004, and 10 years later, that merger has reached its final phase.
Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto, along with Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, today announced the merger will enter its last stage next week, with full consolidation to be complete by mid-September.
This phase is focused on getting the 214 employees at the Allegheny County 911 Center familiar with all 130 municipal codes, according to Director of Allegheny County Emergency Services Chief Alvin Henderson.
“From a hardware perspective, we have to make sure that the technology’s in place, tested and fully functional,” he said. “But most important is our people, the professionals that make up the 911 center. Those people will start going through a mandatory training session on utilization of the [new] technology.”
Currently, emergency calls from Pittsburgh are handled by one call-taking hub, while calls from the rest of the county are controlled by another. Once the merger is finalized, calls from all over the county will go to one center.
Pittsburgh makes up about 25 percent of Allegheny County in terms of population, but about 40 percent of all 911 calls in the county come from the city of Pittsburgh, according to Peduto.
He said the merger allows the 911 center to be more efficient.
“It creates the ability for the call times to become much less and it allows a better opportunity for the responders to be there earlier to be able to save lives,” Peduto said.
Henderson said callers will not notice any changes in call quality despite the merger finalization.
“Because of the technology that we have deployed in the 911 center, that call taker will be able to process that call and handle that call just as any other call taker would have in the past,” he said.
Although the merger is reaching finalization, its funding is still a concern. The 911 center is currently funded through landline fees collected and distributed by the state, but no money comes from cell phones. Fitzgerald has asked state lawmakers to amend the funding formula, but no solution has been put forth.
Peduto said funding should be based on need, not population.
“The way that the formula needs to be recalibrated should be done in such a way that recognizes where the need is coming from throughout the state of Pennsylvania and should be not based upon strict population, but should be based upon the need of the 911 system,” he said.
The Allegheny County 911 Center handles about 1.3 million calls every year, and serves 197 fire departments, 111 police departments and 51 EMS agencies.
