(Source: Autoblog)

In the event of a crash, vehicle sensors gather up information and connects an OnStar adviser to a vehicle. OnStar can then contact emergency services and provide information regarding the severity of the crash, with information about airbags deployed and type of impact. 

In the past, OnStar advisers would have to give emergency services a detailed description of the location of the accident.

Subscribers to the telematics system will benefit from new technology that will enable OnStar to electronically transmit precise longitude and longitude coordinates directly to the 911 center. Where available, the Automatic Location Identification (ALI) data display will show the authorities exactly where you’re located, with almost zero opportunity for error.

The presser had the following info: With this newest OnStar enhancement, 911 centers can automatically receive specific vehicle location information (longitude and latitude) in the 911 Automatic Location Identification (ALI) data display which may interface with a sophisticated mapping system used in many jurisdictions to expedite locating emergency victims. 

“In an emergency, accurate location is the most important piece of information to ensure that help arrives promptly at the scene,” said Cathy McCormick, Emergency and Security Service Line manager, OnStar.

In addition to providing location information, OnStar advisors continue to play an important role in providing critical crash and other emergency-related information directly to dispatchers to help them determine the most appropriate response. 

“The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials has worked with telematics providers since their inception to use the latest technology to assist public safety in saving lives,” said Chris Fischer, president, APCO International. “This technology interfaces with the systems many of our centers have in place already to expedite response.”

With OnStar’s Priority Access program, many PSAPs already receive OnStar emergency calls through an existing 911 trunk line. By routing verified emergency calls to 911 trunk lines, dispatchers will not only receive OnStar calls more quickly, they will also receive important call-related data, including OnStar’s PSAP-only callback number. 

Please join us for the upcoming Talking Technology and Transportation (T3) Webinar:  

Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG 9-1-1) Summit for Large Cities

Description

Advances in telecommunications mobility and convergence have put the nation’s 9-1-1 emergency call system at a crossroads. The growing market penetration of both cellular and Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) telephony, and the increasingly mobile world they reflect, has underscored the limitations of the current 9-1-1 infrastructure. Today’s 9-1-1 system, based on decades-old technology, cannot handle the text, data, images, and video that are increasingly common in personal communications and critical to future transportation safety and mobility advances.

There is consensus within the 9-1-1 community on the need for a new, more capable system surrounding emergency call delivery and response (ultimately a system of systems). There is general agreement on the need to capitalize on advances in information and communications technologies, and develop systems that will enable:

• Quicker and more accurate information delivery to responders;
• Better and more useful forms of information (real-time text, images, video, and other data);
• More flexible, secure and robust Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) operations; and
• Lower public capital and operating costs for emergency communication services.

The US DOT’s Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG 9-1-1) Initiative has helped define and document a vision for the future of 9-1-1. The NG 9-1-1 Initiative is a research and development project to define the system architecture and develop a transition plan that considers responsibilities, costs, schedule and benefits for deploying IP-based emergency services across the nation.

USDOT views the NG 9-1-1 project as a transition enabler, to assist the public in making a 9-1-1 call from any wired, wireless, or IP-based device, and allow the emergency responders to take advantage of enhanced call delivery, multimedia data and advanced call transfer capabilities. To accomplish these goals, the ideas and needs of both public and private 9-1-1 stakeholders have been incorporated.

This webinar will provide a briefing on the status of the NG 9-1-1 Initiative and other development efforts and describe the transition to the National E-911 Implementation Coordination Office that is currently underway.

Audience

This summit targets 9-1-1 stakeholders, public safety communications professionals and other interested parties in the future planning of the nation’s emergency call centers.

Learning Outcomes

• What is NG 9-1-1?
• What is the current status of NG 9-1-1 implementation?
• What steps is USDOT taking toward developing the future of 9-1-1?
• What information about NG 9-1-1 is available?

Federal Hosts:

Linda Dodge and Laurie Flaherty, NG 9-1-1 Co-Program Managers, US DOT

Linda Dodge

Linda Dodge has overall 30 years in public safety (firefighter, paramedic, heavy rescue) in the field and administration. Linda’s experience includes instructing at the Maryland Fire Rescue Institute (MFRI), University of MD; a director of a police and correctional officer academy, for the Maryland Dept. of Public Safety – Police and Corrections; 12 years as executive director Colorado Trauma Institute, Denver, CO and the last 10 years at the DOT ~6 of the10 years as regional program manager NHTSA Region 8, in Lakewood and 4 years ITS JPO, FHWA, in DC public safety program manager (NG 9-1-1, WE 9-1-1, Emergency Transportation Operations, etc.)

Laurie Flaherty

Laurie Flaherty is an emergency nurse, who has more than 20 years of clinical experience. She received her bachelor’s degree in nursing at Marquette University, and has a master’s degree in emergency and trauma nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.

Laurie is a Program Analyst in the Office of EMS at NHTSA and focuses on issues related to the application of technology in Emergency Medical Services and 9-1-1 services. She currently co-manages the Next Generation 9-1-1 Initiative for the Office of EMS, and is also directly involved in establishing and staffing the National 9-1-1 Office.

Presenters:

John Chiaramonte, Booz Allen Hamilton

John Chiaramonte, an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, is the deputy program manager leading the NG 9-1-1 Initiative for the US DOT. In 2008, he successfully managed a team of software developers and technical and functional experts that implemented a proof of concept demonstration.

Prior to joining Booz Allen, John was a Senior Project Manager delivering public safety applications to 9-1-1 centers. He has been involved with public safety IT projects both as the end-user and a vendor and throughout the entire implementation process. He is a subject matter expert on Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) and 9-1-1 systems and operations and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

---

Reference in this webinar to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the public, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by U.S. Department of Transportation.Please forward this announcement to colleagues who may be interested in attending this webinar.

————————————————————————————————————————————————–

• T3 Webinars are brought to you by the ITS Professional Capacity Building, a program of the U.S. DOT’s ITS Program.  Visit the ITS PCB website for more information about T3 webinars and other ITS learning opportunities:  http://www.pcb.its.dot.gov/default.asp
• Visit the T3 archives to view presentations and to listen to audio transcripts from previous T3 webinars:  http://www.pcb.its.dot.gov/res_t3_archive.asp
• Cut and paste links into your web browser if they fail to open the webpage.

 ————————————————————————————————————————————————-

 Important Information for Federal T3 Webinar Participants

Federal Desktop Core Configuration (FDCC) requirements are currently being implemented in federal agencies.  Please contact your IT staff to determine if these requirements affect your ability to connect to T3 webinars via Microsoft Live Meeting from your federal PC or laptop.  This link contains information about Live Meeting and can be provided to your IT staff for further reference:  http://www.pcb.its.dot.gov/t3/info_requirements.asp

(Source: Guardian & Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA)

(Source: Washington Post)

Dear Dr. Gridlock:

A Word of Advise from TransportGooru:

1).  Dear Fight Club Members, it is already a painful experience commuting by DC’s Metro rail during the peak hours.  And you people make it worse by getting into such silly fights without knowing that we are all terribly inconvenienced by your immature behavior.  If you really feel like duking it out, wait till you get to your stop and start jumping at each other.  

2). Dear Dr. Gridlock,  for your kind attention the suggestion to dial 9-1-1 or to use a cellphone to call out from a DC metro tunnel is “INVALID”.  The metro system didn’t realize the concept of “security” when it leased out the licenses only to Verizon, which means cellphone users with other carrers like AT&T, Sprint, etc are sitting ducks until they resurface from the tunnel to an above ground station or section of the track.  Talking about Social Equity and DC Metro makes me mad!  All damn tax payers paid for the system and how come Metro decided to lease out the lines only to the previleged Verzion customers?  This is a DUMB policy and only validates eagerness to remain out of touch and incredibly partial & discreminatory!

Yes, it can happpen to anyone!  Even if you are the Attorney General of California.  The thieves in California are probably the best of the breed in this business – sincere & hardworking; they just go about doing their jobs without any discrimination. A brazen thief swiped two wheels off Attorney General Jerry Brown‘s state-owned Toyota Camry Hybrid. Is this schadenfreude or irony?

The theft occurred while Brown was out of town at the state Democratic convention in Sacramento and the car was parked streetside in front of his Oakland Hills home. The thieves left the car up on cinder blocks, observing proper wheel theft etiquette, boldly choosing to take the two street facing wheels rather than the home-facing wheels. 

Amy Morosini, 40, a neighbor of Brown’s, said she was driving with her family to a college reunion on Saturday when she saw the car on a cinder block.

“I kind of just pointed it out to my husband and said, ‘Oh my God, look! Someone stole Jerry’s tires!’ ” Morosini said Thursday.

 

Th ebest part in this is the sense of humor exhibited by the AG.  Brown said in a message posted on his Facebook page:  

“Even though I am California’s ‘top cop,’ 2 of my tires were stolen. No matter. I got 2 new ones and I’m rolling again!” 

Way to go,  Mr. Brown!  Keep rollin’. BTW, Does the thief know that he stole his own money – the wheels belonged to a tax-payer owned state vehicle.  Looks like California’s  thieves are among the dumbest in business. 

(Source:  SF Gate via Jalopnik)

(Source: Tree Hugger & NOLA)

It wasn’t so long ago that we wrote about the Power of One (Xof1) Solar Car breaking a world distance record, and that’s the kind of story we like to write about. But via our friends at Autobloggreen, we learn that someone broke into the solar car’s support vehicle and stole an estimated $10,000 of stuff (including passports). What’s even sadder is that in the video below, you can hear Marcelo da Luz explain how he gave up his job, mortgaged his house, maxed his credit card, etc, to get this project off the ground.

Marcelo da Luz gave up his job, girlfriend and nearly a half-million dollars to build a solar-powered car and drive it all over the Americas, a trek that brought him and several international volunteers, following in a van, to New Orleans early Sunday evening.

But an hour after he parked on a busy, well-lighted French Quarter street, someone broke into the van and stole passports, laptops, credit cards, cash, a digital camera and a portable hard drive.

Despite the estimated $10,000 loss, da Luz seemed in high spirits the next morning, describing the break-in as a “dent” in his ecological barnstorming tour. He insisted that he was still enjoying his first visit to the Crescent City. After discovering the theft, da Luz and an assistant from the Netherlands trotted to a nearby tavern to “drown their sorrows.”

Despite his setback in New Orleans, da Luz plans to continue east to the Atlantic coast of Florida.

“I don’t hope anything bad happens to whoever did this or anything, ” he said. “I just hope their lives turn out better so they don’t need to do this to anyone else.”  

Spoke like a true gentleman, Mr. da Luz!

(Source: Autobloggreen)

(Source: Washington Post)

“Police could not reasonably have believed either that Gant could have accessed his car at the time of the search or that evidence of the offense for which he was arrested might have been found therein,” Stevens wrote.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the four dissenters, said the court’s insistence that its precedents had been misinterpreted was simply a cover for getting rid of a decision with which it disagreed.

(Source:  Assosicated Press & Union Leader)

 Sgt. Paul Thompson was on routine patrol early Monday when he noticed a car stopped at a red light at the intersection of Bridge and Union streets in Manchester, N.H.  The car didn’t move when the light turned green. So the police officer checked it out and found the driver asleep at the wheel, with one foot still on the brake. The 22-year-old driver, Victoria LaGrange, eventually woke up, showing signs of intoxication, and was arrested Monday on a charge of aggravated driving while intoxicated, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported.