GPS failure 'frustrating' for Milwaukee firefighters

By Larry Sandler
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MILWAUKEE — A $400,000 electronic system to pinpoint the location of Milwaukee Fire Department units has been out of service for about a year and may not be fixed for another three months, department officials say.

Fire Chief Doug Holton said his goal is to repair the global positioning system technology before late August, when motorcyclists jam city streets during the 105th anniversary festivities for Harley-Davidson Inc.

Holton said the system's failure did not endanger public safety or slow Fire Department response times, because dispatchers were still able to use older technology as a backup.

Still, Ald. Bob Donovan called the yearlong GPS breakdown an unfortunate situation.

"That's frustrating, because we paid so much for it," said Donovan, the chairman of the Common Council's Public Safety Committee.

The GPS technology uses satellites to create an electronic map showing the location of every pumper, ladder truck and paramedic unit in the city, and to tell Fire Department dispatchers which units could reach an emergency scene most quickly, said Capt. John Pederson, who leads the department's technical services section.

That was an upgrade from an older system that told dispatchers only whether a particular unit was in its fire station, on the streets of its regular service area or somewhere else, Pederson said.

The GPS functions were part of a larger upgrade of Fire Department technology. The $4.2 million computer-aided dispatching system, including the GPS components, went live in late April 2004, Pederson said.

Holton said the technology worked as planned for about three years. But in late spring 2007, a computer server went down, taking the GPS functions with it, Pederson said.

The warranty on the server had expired, Pederson said. As a result, the department didn't have any recourse against Dell, the computer company that provided the server, and the problem wasn't with the software, which came from PEC Solutions Inc., of Fairfax, Va., said department spokeswoman Tiffany Wynn. PEC has since been purchased by Canada's Nortel Networks Inc. and is now known as Nortel Government Solutions.

Fire Department staffers decided it was more cost-effective to replace the server, for about $5,000, than to repair it, Pederson said. But the server still hasn't been replaced, he said.

Holton said replacing the GPS technology "wasn't a really high priority at the time," because dispatchers could rely on the previous system. Both systems still require dispatchers to use their own experience and judgment, said Deputy Chief Gary Miller, commander of the Bureau of Administration.

Work on the new server also was delayed by the retirement of a dispatching battalion chief, who has since been replaced, and by the maternity leave of a key computer staffer, Holton said.

The Harley anniversary was set as a target date for replacing the server because major special events generate more medical service calls at the same time increased traffic makes it harder for Fire Department vehicles to get through traffic quickly, Miller said. Commanders plan for those events by strategically positioning units around the city in advance, he said.

Aside from the GPS problems, the computer-aided dispatching system has worked well, Pederson said.

He and Miller said the system's biggest advantage has been the installation of mobile computer terminals in every vehicle. That has allowed dispatchers to quickly transmit information about changing conditions at fire scenes, Pederson said.