LEBANON — Warren County police agencies will be able to share information faster and emergency workers will have an easier time locating cell-phone users who call 911 when a new communications system comes on line in fall.

        Those are just some attributes of the new multimillion-dollar map-based Computer Aided Dispatching system that is being touted as state-of-the-art, said Frank Young, director of Warren County's emergency management agency.

        The benefits of the countywide system are obvious to emergency workers. However, the public will gain from it, too, he said.

        Even the simplest function, which allows dispatchers to punch fewer buttons when sending help, enhances service.

        “We don't have to punch buttons to activate tones in a fire station. While that doesn't sound like a big deal, every second you can shave off of there is seconds gained for the citizen,” Mr. Young said.

        A start-up cost of about $1.6 million will pay for a computer system that, for the first time, will place terminals in all county police and fire stations. That will allow those agencies to access the same information generated by 911 calls to aid them in writing reports and keeping records.

        That information will later be available through mobile data terminals that will be phased into the system.

        County dispatchers are expected to have their computers up and running in November, with the rest of the police and fire agencies brought on line by summer 2003, Mr. Young said.

        Other benefits include a mapping function that will pinpoint the location of cell-phone callers who need help.

        The mobile data terminals, at a cost of about $2.4 million for 200 police cruisers and 150 fire vehicles, could be phased in by late 2003, depending on the availability of funding, Mr. Young said.

        The Mason Police Department, which is in the process of buying its own mobile data terminals with a federal grant, will be the first agency to use the system, possibly by year's end, said Chief Ron Ferrell.

        That will free up time, allowing an officer to put his report directly into the mobile unit, instead of writing it out by hand, then entering it into another system at the office, he said.

        “Eighty percent of the advantage of this is to free up the officer's time,” Chief Ferrell said.

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