It has been about 8-9 years since I worked on coding and installing e911 dispatch systems for police and fire, but even then we were using GPS to recommend the closest fire unit of the type (Engine, Quint, Hazmat, etc) needed for the Incident (1 alarm, 2 alarm, etc) to automagically recommend to the dispatcher units to dispatch. It was pretty slick stuff, though a pain to calculate the distance between unit and incident location for each unit and that was using 'as a crow flies' reckoning. I'm sure newer technology is using mapping technology to figure out closest distance based on actual road travel. This jump in the technology is just an extension of what is already out there.
Slashdot Mirror
It has been about 8-9 years since I worked on coding and installing e911 dispatch systems for police and fire, but even then we were using GPS to recommend the closest fire unit of the type (Engine, Quint, Hazmat, etc) needed for the Incident (1 alarm, 2 alarm, etc) to automagically recommend to the dispatcher units to dispatch. It was pretty slick stuff, though a pain to calculate the distance between unit and incident location for each unit and that was using 'as a crow flies' reckoning. I'm sure newer technology is using mapping technology to figure out closest distance based on actual road travel. This jump in the technology is just an extension of what is already out there.