Audit Report On The Fire Department Of New York’s Automatic Vehicle Location System

On April 1, 2005, the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) entered into an agreement with the Hewlett-Packard Company (HP) for the Emergency Communications Transformation Program (ECTP).  The objective of ECTP is to centralize and integrate the call-taking and dispatch operations among the New York Police Department (NYPD), Fire Department of New York (FDNY), and Emergency Medical Services (EMS), which merged with FDNY in 1996, into two Public Safety Answering Centers (PSACs).  ECTP is divided into a number of sub-projects, one of which is the development and deployment of an Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system for both fire emergency response vehicles and EMS vehicles.

According to an April 19, 2006, joint press release, the Mayor and former Fire Commissioner stated that, “all New York City ambulances and Fire Department apparatus including engines, ladder trucks, rescue companies and battalion vehicles will be equipped with the Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system by the end of the summer.  AVL utilizes Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) technology to track the real-time movements of any equipped vehicle, helping dispatchers more accurately deploy emergency resources.”  The press release further stated that, “AVL is invaluable in providing a real-time update of where resources are actually located.  Combined with CAD, AVL is a powerful tool that creates a visual map of where emergency resources are located and their movements.”

FDNY’s two Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems (one for fire emergency vehicles and the other for EMS) are designed to serve the demanding call-taking and dispatching needs of FDNY.  CAD also provides a recommendation of which vehicle(s) should respond to an incident based on certain factors in the CAD systems, including a vehicle’s actual location, which is supplied by AVL.  The AVL system provides FDNY management and dispatchers with a visual tool that displays the location of the vehicles being dispatched.  However, FDNY officials stated that AVL is fully integrated into the EMSCAD system, but not into the Starfire CAD (for fire emergency vehicles) system.

As of February 2011, the total cost of the AVL project for Fire and EMS was approximately $39 million.

Our objectives were to determine whether the AVL system functions as intended and whether the resources to maintain the system were appropriate.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

As the AVL system has limited use for fire emergency vehicles, we question whether the $7.3 million expended on the fire emergency response vehicles was a good use of project funds or if these funds could have been used more effectively elsewhere.  Additionally, the AVL system does not track or display the location of FDNY vehicles in “real time” and, in some instances, displays vehicles inaccurately or not at all.  However, we do not believe the instances we observed of inaccurately displayed or missing vehicles pose a threat to public safety.

Additionally, FDNY’s Radio Shop does not maintain accurate inventory records or a suitable inventory tracking system to account for all of its emergency response vehicles equipped with AVL or for its AVL ensembles.

Finally, despite investing $39 million in the AVL system, it appears that FDNY has not provided appropriate resources to maintain the system.  According to FDNY officials, the resources within EMSCAD programming and FDNY’s Radio Shop may not be sufficient to maintain the system.

Audit Recommendations

The audit recommends that FDNY should:

• Assess whether additional resources should be spent on enhancements to the AVL system for fire emergency response vehicles and related equipment.

• Prior to each EMS shift, have vehicle crews confirm with their dispatchers that their vehicles’ AVL units are functioning properly.  Any exceptions should be documented and referred to the appropriate party.

• Perform periodic diagnostics to identify exceptions that occur within the AVL system.  These exceptions should be documented and corrective action taken to ensure that the exceptions are corrected.

• Ensure that all AVL exceptions are tracked independently.

• Ensure that there are adequate resources to maintain the AVL system.

• Ensure that all AVL equipment is accurately engraved, bar-coded, and entered into the electronic inventory tracking system in a timely manner.

Agency Response

FDNY officials generally agreed with the report’s recommendations.  In their response, FDNY officials stated, “…we agree with a large percentage of the recommendations in the report, noting that the Department had previously recognized some of these same issues.  As a result, we have already begun to take steps to address these recommendations.”