Background

Currently Station Officers have the discretion to exchange units. For example, when PE725 is dispatched on an ALS1 call on Bel Pre Road the Station Officer has the discretion to send T725 instead. Historically when this happened ECC would exchange the units and preempt (clear) the unit not responding on the call. Nothing has changed in this process. The entire exchange process is executed by ECC.

Impact

Since the implementation of new CAD there have been multiple occasions where units have attempted to preempt themselves from incidents via their MDC. What has happened in some of those cases is that the entire incident has been inadvertently cleared. Once the incident is cleared it disappears from the dispatcher’s screen, dramatically increasing the chances of a service delay.

Take Away

DO NOT attempt to execute unit exchanges via the MDC.  Always allow ECC to execute ALL unit exchanges.