Programme overview
Introduction:
Emergency communications centre operations, covering call-taking, multi-agency dispatch and QA, is a 5-day course for emergency call-taking, dispatch supervision and centre management teams that ends with an Emergency Communications Centre Performance and Resilience Plan for a case centre. Centres put lives at risk when calls queue unanswered, caller locations go unverified, incidents pass slowly between police, fire and ambulance agencies and recordings are never reviewed. Nominees already supervise telecommunicators or manage centre operations and learn through timed simulations built on call logs, CAD timestamps and recordings. CoreConcept Training Center delivers this emergency communications centre operations course.
Course Objectives:
- Compare answering point models, single-stage and two-stage call handling and agency interfaces, and baseline a centre from its call logs
- Apply ANI and ALI data, Advanced Mobile Location and CAD geocoding to verify caller location before dispatch
- Run structured caller interrogation and pre-arrival instruction protocols that keep call processing consistent across shifts
- Coordinate multi-agency dispatch through CAD unit recommendation, AVL status boards, warm transfers and CAD-to-CAD incident sharing
- Measure answer time, call processing and dispatch intervals and audit call recordings against protocol scorecards
- Produce an Emergency Communications Centre Performance and Resilience Plan covering staffing, overflow routing and backup centre failover
Target Audience:
- Call-taking supervision teams responsible for telecommunicator performance and caller interrogation quality on each shift
- Dispatch coordination teams accountable for assigning police, fire and ambulance units and tracking their status
- Centre management teams responsible for staffing levels, budgets and service performance of unified emergency call centres
- Quality assurance teams that review call recordings, score protocol adherence and feed back to telecommunicators
- Technology and systems teams that maintain CAD, telephony, location data and radio console integration
- Continuity planning teams that design backup centres, overflow arrangements and outage procedures
Course Outline:
Day 1: Emergency Communications Centre Landscape and Current-State Review
- Primary and Secondary Answering Point Models and Call Routing
- Single-Stage Versus Two-Stage Emergency Call Handling Models Compared
- Police, Fire and Ambulance Agency Interfaces at the Centre
- Call Demand Profiling by Hour, Weekday and Incident Type
- Centre Current-State Review Using Call Logs and CAD Timestamps
Day 2: Caller Location, CAD Architecture and Call-Taking Protocols
- ANI and ALI Data Flow From Network to Console
- Advanced Mobile Location and Handset-Based Caller Positioning Checks
- NENA i3 Next Generation Emergency Calling Architecture Overview
- CAD Incident Entry, Type Codes and Geocoded Address Mapping
- Structured Caller Interrogation Protocols and Pre-Arrival Instruction Cards
Day 3: Multi-Agency Dispatch, Transfers and Telecommunicator Staffing
- CAD Unit Recommendation by Response Zone and Road Routing
- AVL Unit Status Board Monitoring and Radio Console Integration
- Warm Transfer and Conference Call Procedures Between Agencies
- EDXL Message Exchange for CAD-to-CAD Incident Sharing
- Queueing-Based Telecommunicator Staffing and Console Position Coverage Model
Day 4: Difficult Calls, Quality Assurance and Centre Resilience
- Silent, Abandoned, Hoax and Repeat Caller Handling Procedures
- High-Distress Caller De-Escalation and Telecommunicator Critical Incident Debriefing
- Call-Recording Review Scorecard and Protocol Adherence Sampling
- Answer Time, Call Processing and Dispatch Interval KPI Dashboard
- Backup Centre Failover, Overflow Routing and Telephony Outage Drills
Day 5: Simulation and the Emergency Communications Centre Performance and Resilience Plan
- Multi-Vehicle Collision Call Surge Simulation With Agency Handoffs
- Primary Centre Outage Simulation With Backup Site Failover
- Case Centre KPI Baseline and Call-Recording Review Findings
- Case Centre Staffing and Overflow Redesign for Peak Demand
- Emergency Communications Centre Performance and Resilience Plan Completion
Skills You Will Gain:
- Caller Location Verification
- Caller Interrogation Protocol Supervision
- Multi-Agency Dispatch Coordination
- CAD Incident Data Management
- Call-Recording Quality Review
- Telecommunicator Staffing Modelling
- Emergency Call KPI Reporting
- Centre Failover Planning
Why Attend This Course:
- Deliver an Emergency Communications Centre Performance and Resilience Plan to the centre director and the partner agency leads for approval
- Decide which calls are transferred, which are dispatched directly and how many consoles each hour of the week requires
- Avoid unanswered call queues, unverified caller locations and service loss when the primary centre or telephony fails
- Coach telecommunicators with the interrogation checklist, recording review scorecard and KPI dashboard used during the course
Conclusion:
Back at work, the participant presents the Emergency Communications Centre Performance and Resilience Plan to the centre director and the police, fire and ambulance agency leads. Management uses it to approve console staffing, set answer time and dispatch interval targets, agree transfer rules between agencies and fund backup centre and overflow arrangements. After the first failover drill and the first month of recording reviews under the plan, the centre should compare KPI results, protocol adherence scores and abandoned call rates with the baseline and adjust the actions that have not moved.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ):
What should participants know before an emergency communications centre operations course?
Participants should already supervise call-takers or dispatchers, or manage a unified emergency call centre, and be able to read CAD incident records. Bringing anonymised call logs, KPI reports or recording review forms helps them apply the methods during the simulation day.
How does emergency communications centre operations differ from an ambulance service or incident command course?
This course runs the multi-agency answering centre itself: call-taking, caller location, CAD, transfers, recording review and centre resilience. Ambulance service courses cover fleet deployment and clinical response, while incident command courses cover on-scene and coordination centre structures during major incidents.
Why does emergency communications centre operations rely on caller location data such as ANI, ALI and Advanced Mobile Location?
Location data lets the telecommunicator dispatch before a distressed caller can describe where they are. Comparing network, database and handset positions, then confirming verbally, reduces misdirected units and wasted minutes, especially for mobile and silent calls.
What do participants take back from the emergency communications centre operations course?
Participants take back an Emergency Communications Centre Performance and Resilience Plan with a KPI dashboard layout, a call-recording review scorecard, a caller interrogation checklist, a console staffing model and a backup centre failover checklist they can adapt to their own centre.