On November 1, Hamilton County / Chattanooga, TN became the 30th 9-1-1 PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) in the United States and the 1st in Tennessee to implement the ASAP-to-PSAP service (ASAP®). Tennessee is the 11th state plus the District of Columbia now open for ASAP traffic.
ASAP, launched in 2011 as a public-private partnership, is designed to increase the accuracy and efficiency of calls for service from alarm companies to PSAPs. The ASAP service utilizes ANSI standard protocols developed cooperatively by the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) and The Monitoring Association (TMA).
“Implementation of the ASAP-to-PSAP [service] will help eliminate the potential for clerical errors, cut call volume to the 9-1-1 Center, and most importantly, reduces 9-1-1 call-processing times by as much as 2-3 minutes. This will help save lives, protect property, provide faster response times to in-progress events, and potentially help apprehend more criminals,” Hamilton County officials said.
Nashville-based ADS Security was the first alarm monitoring company to go live with Hamilton County. “The district is very appreciative of ADS Security’s support and work in helping us bring this new technology to our citizens,” said John Stuermer, executive director for Hamilton County Emergency Communications District. “ADS demonstrated great leadership and commitment to providing the highest level of alarm service response to their customers.
Additional alarm companies quickly followed ADS. Vector Security and Rapid Response went live with Hamilton on November 2, and Vivint, Protection One, Monitronics, Guardian Protection, and Affiliated are scheduled to go live in the upcoming days, followed by ADT.
Read Hamilton County’s announcement
More information on ASAP