MONTICELLO – The use of automated vehicle locators in the county’s EMS units was discussed to open up the Public Safety and Law Enforcement Committee of the Sullivan County Legislature on Thursday. 

EMS and 9-1-1 Coordinator Alex Rau said that he and Public Safety Commissioner Scott Schulte discussed the benefits of being able to know where the units, particularly the commercial providers, are located within the county. 

“Especially as we move into this county EMS system with the fly cars, we want to make sure we’re getting the closest and most appropriate units to the most critical calls,” Rau said. “It’s important that the dispatcher has that information in hand, where the units are located and that they be accurate.”

Rau noted that there have been times in the past when the estimated times of arrival (ETAs) have not matched up and that they would like to ensure that the right thing is happening for patient care. He said that they have asked several times over the past decade for the appropriate tools.

“Many of these vehicles already have automated vehicle locators in them that their companies used,” Rau said. “However we’ve been denied access or sharing of that data or we’ve been ignored when asked. We’ve been asked to bring this up as a discussion item  for a possible local law to require vehicle locators in our EMS units from commercial providers.”

Schulte clarified to the board when questions came up, that private companies such as Empress which are contracted by the county, already have GPS locators in their vehicles but they are asking them to share the data.

“If they don’t want to share the data, that’s fine,” said Schulte. “Just understand that we are going to utilize the closet unit that has automated vehicle locators. We just don’t want to hear that a unit is responding from Ferndale, has a nine-minute ETA and then 10 minutes into the call is 11 minutes away.”

County Parliamentarian Tom Cawley also noted that his office is looking into the possibility of creating a local law and that the purpose of the discussion item was to see if the Legislature was interested in doing it. Cawley also made clear that it is only for the private, for-profit companies as it will not be enforced on the local, volunteer companies of the county. 

Committee Chair and District 6 Legislator Luis Alvarez stated that one of the advantages that a GPS would have is that they wouldn’t run into communication difficulties when they are going back and forth in the county. 

“You take an example like Upper Delaware Ambulance Corps, the communication is sometimes very difficult,” Alvarez said. “And people don’t realize that that is happening. In the future, we hope that will be fixed for the rest of the county.”