City of Oakland Completes Upgrade of Computer-Aided Dispatch System for 911 Emergency Service, First in 20 Years

Today the City of Oakland announced our Police and Fire Departments have successfully launched the City's new Motorola PremiereOne Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) system, the first major upgrade to this critical tool in twenty years.

The upgraded system replaces a 20+ year old CAD system that was no longer supported by Motorola and is the most significant public safety IT project that the City of Oakland has undertaken in the past two decades. The process of finalizing the project and installing it took several months. On the morning of July 30, dispatchers began receiving calls on the system.

"Oaklanders deserve to feel assured that when they dial 911 in an emergency, someone will be answering swiftly to start dispatching the emergency responders they need. Today we're taking a huge step to reinforce that confidence and to improve our emergency service to our community," Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said. "Public safety is my administration's highest priority and today we're pleased to share with the community that we've delivered the first major upgrade to 911's dispatch system in 20 years. This system improvement builds on the investments we have made to staff up our hardworking dispatcher units. Now we have more people using better tools to deliver for our community."

The new CAD system is fully functional, highly secure, and makes public safety communications more efficient through the use of integrated equipment and interagency information sharing capabilities.

The success of this highly complex project is the result of a strong collaborative effort between the Oakland Police Department, Oakland Fire Department, and Information Technology Department.

"The launch of our new PremierOne CAD system provides our Communications Division with a state-of-the-art platform for 9-1-1 dispatch," said Floyd Mitchell, Chief of Police for the City of Oakland. "CAD provides an enhanced user interface that supports our dispatchers in their daily tasks and seamlessly integrates with other information systems to support a more coordinated and effective response."

"As the volume of 911 calls climb, our firefighters and medical service units deserve the best tools possible to help with a timely, well-informed response," said Fire Chief Damon Covington. "Our new and upgraded 9-1-1 dispatch system is a significant step forward and efficiently connects all corners of our department to Oaklanders requiring emergency services."

"This work represents contributions from many individuals, and I especially want to recognize those from the Information Technology Department," said Chief Information Officer, Tony Batalla. "My team worked through weekends and around-the-clock shifts to support OPD and OFD on this upgrade."

This work builds on additional efforts to improve the City of Oakland's emergency response times such as increasing dispatch staffing and implementing call tree improvements to streamline 9-1-1 calls. It also paves the way for future technology improvements, such as replacing the Oakland Police Department's legacy Records Management System (RMS).

The City of Oakland remains committed to ensuring that residents receive the highest levels of service possible. The completed CAD upgrade builds on several improvements delivered so far in 2024:

• The City has increased the percentage of 911 calls answered within 15 seconds - the industry standard for pickup time. In early 2023, Oakland was meeting that standard for 36% of 911 calls. In August 2024, that percentage had increased to 51%.
• Dispatcher hiring has been ongoing, and we are currently staffed at 69 dispatchers out of a budgeted total of 78 (an increase of 2 funded positions over the previous year). We maintain continuous recruiting for these positions and have implemented a new cohort model of hiring to improve retention. The City is currently conducting background checks on recently-interviewed applicants.
• Swift hiring into the dispatchers team means that a greater-than-normal proportion of Oakland's veteran dispatchers are dedicating working hours to support and train those new recruits. On-the-job training typically lasts for 40 weeks or more, so as those newer team members complete that training and their trainers resume spending those hours taking calls themselves, the City expects those answering times to continue to improve.
• ITD was able to implement an auto-attendant for the non-emergency calls that allows callers to make an automated selection for a variety of services that do not require a dispatcher, such as Oak311, Animal Services, and Encampment Management. The system still allows a caller to speak to a dispatcher if they need to but first allows for calls to be diverted. The impact on dispatchers being able to answer calls quicker looks promising. The cost of this was minor and done within the current budget.
• The 911 call center added ten training stations that are CAD connected and functioning which means the 20 current trainees can get up to speed faster-a critical component to the staffing challenges. This was done with existing resources.
• Support from the City's Department of Transportation (OakDOT) resolved an existing issue of needing a dispatcher to process abandoned auto requests, reducing the need for difficult overtime shifts for 911 dispatchers.

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