Send a text to 9-1-1

I don't think it had ever occurred to me that you couldn't send a text message to 9-1-1, but then that's because it hadn't occurred to me that you might want to. They're working on it, however, and you will be able to do it in a few years.

In addition to text messages, you could be able to send photos of a purse-snatcher caught in the act or photos of a vehicle accident to 911.

It's all part of what's called Next Generation 911, and 911 districts in the Houston area are gearing up for it. Basically, what it means is that you could use any communication device from anywhere to reach 911.

''We're all excited," said Sharon Counterman, deputy director of the Greater Harris County 911 Emergency Network, which includes Fort Bend County. "It's something that will increase what we do for the public and serve them much better. Many younger people believe they can do a text message today to 911, and they cannot," Counterman said.

Recent technology is driving the change. Mobile devices have altered the way people communicate, yet 911 networks haven't kept pace, say emergency communication officials.

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Texas A&M University and Columbia University have received federal grants as part of the project to build an operational model, and researchers have tested it in five cities, including College Station, during the past five months.

During a demonstration last month in College Station, 911 officials from across the state got a chance to see the model receive text messages and live video.

Many 911 officials say this will be beneficial because operators will have more crucial information to pass along to police or emergency medical crews responding to an emergency.

For example, if someone witnesses a vehicle accident on the highway, they can take pictures and send them to 911. The operator can determine from the pictures the severity of the accident and determine whether they need to dispatch only an ambulance or an ambulance and a firetruck equipped with the Jaws of Life.

Also, now that many cars are being built with OnStar systems, the capability exists for those systems to share information with a 911 operator with Next Generation equipment, Brubaker said.

OnStar can relay information such as the location of the accident, the point of crash impact, the position of the vehicle, whether air bags were deployed and where people are seated in the vehicle, he said.

''All that information is immediately available to 911, and you don't have to be on the phone verbally describing it," he said.

I'm sure you've seen those OnStar ads where there's a crash and the Onstar operator comes online to ask the driver if he's okay, then connects to 9-1-1 to call for help. Well, why not eliminate the middleman and just have OnStar connect directly to 9-1-1 with all the relevant crash information? Seems like it'd save time and ensure that nothing got lost in translation. This is definitely an idea whose time has come.

Is there a downside to this?

Bobby Wright, executive director of the Galveston County Emergency Communication District, agrees. But his major concern with the new 911 is that dispatchers might end up with too much data to handle.

''On a typical 911 call, you have one person dealing with a call," Wright said. "If you give them a lot of data, you have to give them a way to digest it all."

Or you give them a way to relay all that information directly to the responder's vehicle. That would not only save the time of having to describe it all verbally, but would again ensure that it is relayed accurately. Seems to me that would be a logical part of this progression. Police cars are generally already equipped with computers these days, so as long as they had Internet access, it shouldn't be that hard to extend this concept. I look forward to seeing it roll out in the real world.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on August 11, 2008 to Technology, science, and math