Trumbull to get mapping system

By Ed Runyan

WARREN — Trumbull County dispatchers will have a better way to pinpoint wireless 911 emergency calls.

County commissioners plan to approve legislation today to allow the 911 center to buy a mapping system from a Columbus company.

The purchase was made possible by a ruling last week from Judge John M. Stuard of common pleas court, who said it was permissible for the county to proceed with the purchase.

The purchase had been delayed by a lawsuit filed by several county government bodies against the county over the use of fees being charged to wireless phone customers.

Mike Dolhancryk, 911 director, said Digital Data Technologies will need about six months to drive to “every square inch of Trumbull County” to take video of all addresses and locations and enter that information into a data base.

When the map is complete, it will be accessible to all county dispatching centers, as well as other individuals and organizations. It will be paired with dispatching computers to give dispatchers an address to correspond with the location of a cell phone.

Dispatching equipment already brings up addresses for 911 calls made from land line phones, but dispatchers receiving cell phone calls at this point cannot pinpoint location, Dolhancryk said.

The only information dispatchers get now is what cell phone tower the call came from, he said.

With Trumbull having its own map, dispatchers also will have immediate access to all the various names identified with various roads, since some roads are known by more than one name, Dolhancryk said.

“Any way an address comes in, it will be pinpointed on the map,” Dolhancryk told county commissioners Tuesday.

The map should also work seemlessly with the current county maps in Portage and Stark counties, he added.

runyan@vindy.com