000 isnt state or specific local area controlled? - Page 2

grandpa_spec_F6 · 04-11-2010, 12:54 PM

For a while people have been wanting iPhones to replace their Blackberry's currently being used, however one major concern has been that if they start using features such as the GPS in place of the one they have into ambulance, or another feature that has not been department approved, this could lead to litigation and other such incidents which would not be favorable.

What GPS models are you using geckoGT?

As for the "public service vegetable", I invite anyone to take a tour of AFCOM or SECOM and see what they have to deal with. I've personally toured AFCOM and met the operators (QAS and QFRS) and all I can say is they are amazing the way they deal with things. Bushfire season is starting up soon, so spare a thought for them during this busy and dangerous time.

geckoGT · 04-11-2010, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grandpa_spec_au

For a while people have been wanting iPhones to replace their Blackberry's currently being used, however one major concern has been that if they start using features such as the GPS in place of the one they have into ambulance, or another feature that has not been department approved, this could lead to litigation and other such incidents which would not be favorable.

What GPS models are you using geckoGT?

As for the "public service vegetable", I invite anyone to take a tour of AFCOM or SECOM and see what they have to deal with. I've personally toured AFCOM and met the operators (QAS and QFRS) and all I can say is they are amazing the way they deal with things. Bushfire season is starting up soon, so spare a thought for them during this busy and dangerous time.

My personal GPS units, of which I have 2 are a older Garmin (now 5 years old) and a Uniden. The uniden is by far the better of the two. I have used many diffferent types during the days we used to use our own and out of all the Navman, Tomtom, Garmin etc that I have used, the Uniden I have now is brilliant.

In the vehicles at work we have two that are still in existence. The less common one and being phased out is the VDO Dayton. This one is a bucket of crap, difficult to read as a single officer at high speed, not very user friendly and takes too long to enter an address into. If the vehicle I am using has one of these I use my uniden, refuse to use that bucket of crap. Luckily these units are only fitted to some of the older ICP and OIC vehicles and as the vehicles are being replaced, these units are disappearing.

The more common units are Garmin Nuvi units fitted with external antenna and these are not a bad unit. The official line is now that units are fitted to all vehicles you are not allowed to use your own and to be honest most of us use the work ones. In the early fit out some bright spark decided the GPS should be hard mounted on the console which is down low and out of the drivers field of vision (down lower than the gear lever). This was because some guy that lives behind a desk decided that would be better in a crash. As a result many of us refused to use them and we used our own, the way we saw it mounting it down low was unusable and made us more likely to crash (at least it was safer when we did crash

). Since then most of them have been changed and are now mounted on the top of the dash within the driver field of vision so we are now happy to use them. I normally have mine with me in case the vehicle I am using has console mounted GPS but that is the only time I use mine.

As for the idea of them using the GPS features on an Iphone, I can tell you that that would not be supported by the service at all. All vehicles that require navigation to call outs now have them fitted. Plus there are vehicle mount issues as well as power supply issues, an Iphone using GPS really chews through battery time. Anyone using the GPS on their Iphone would certainly be invited for a conversation with their Officer-In-Charge or Area Director if they were caught.

As for the public service vegetables, I agree. It takes a special kind of person to calm down a caller, get the information and give first aid advice while a mother is screaming because her child is choking or been found not breathing in it's cot. I take my hat off to them, I could not do their job.

By the way, anyone that thinks they are actually public servants (the comms operators that is), think again. They are uniformed operational staff just as paramedics are and do not come under the public service at all. Best way to annoy a comms operator or paramedic is to call either of us a public servant.

As for the numerous times 000 have gotten the details wrong that another member knows about and is happy to tell. For each moment he can tell of that they got it wrong, I bet I can give a 1000 examples of when they go it right, not too many trades have a accuracy rate like that.

grandpa_spec_F6 · 04-11-2010, 03:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by geckoGT

As for the numerous times 000 have gotten the details wrong that another member knows about and is happy to tell. For each moment he can tell of that they got it wrong, I bet I can give a 1000 examples of when they go it right, not too many trades have a accuracy rate like that.

I would also like to elaborate on this.

I was having a conversation with one of the QAS AFCOM operators the other week, and inquired as to why he wasn't manning the phones. His response was that he was in 'the sin bin', because he put down Rd instead of St.

His punishment? A solid month and a bit of filing endless paperwork. They don't go easy and expect a lot from these poor buggers, and they don't take mistakes lightly. As geckoGT said, QAS and QFRS are uniformed, I myself work for the public service, and support the I.T needs of the QAS and QFRS.

geckoGT · 04-11-2010, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grandpa_spec_au

I would also like to elaborate on this.

I was having a conversation with one of the QAS AFCOM operators the other week, and inquired as to why he wasn't manning the phones. His response was that he was in 'the sin bin', because he put down Rd instead of St.

His punishment? A solid month and a bit of filing endless paperwork. They don't go easy and expect a lot from these poor buggers, and they don't take mistakes lightly. As geckoGT said, QAS and QFRS are uniformed, I myself work for the public service, and support the I.T needs of the QAS and QFRS.

That comms operator probably made that mistake during a night shift when he was totally stuffed and so tired that a normal person would struggle to count to ten, forget taking details on a life threatening situation. The on road effect of his mistake would have been nil, we would work out it was meant to be st instead of rd.
Their assessments go way beyond that. When I was doing the OIC thing we got daily reports on how both the on road and comms staff went on the various elements of the service KPI's that are monitored. For us on road it is mostly about response times with most of our averages being well under KPI targets and we often lead the country in response times.

For the comms operators they are assessed on every case on accuracy of the details, the amount of time for the call to be answered (majority of calls are answered within 10 seconds, how many answer their calls at their workplace within 10 seconds), time it takes for calls to be dispatched etc. The level of assessment, review, auditing etc that comms operators are under is nothing short of mind boggling, I can not think of any other public interface employment that has anywhere near the level of monitoring and assessment that they have. Even the paramedics out on the road are not monitored and audited like the comms operators are and we have some pretty stringent systems in place.

flappist · 04-11-2010, 05:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by grandpa_spec_au

For a while people have been wanting iPhones to replace their Blackberry's currently being used, however one major concern has been that if they start using features such as the GPS in place of the one they have into ambulance, or another feature that has not been department approved, this could lead to litigation and other such incidents which would not be favorable.

What GPS models are you using geckoGT?

As for the "public service vegetable", I invite anyone to take a tour of AFCOM or SECOM and see what they have to deal with. I've personally toured AFCOM and met the operators (QAS and QFRS) and all I can say is they are amazing the way they deal with things. Bushfire season is starting up soon, so spare a thought for them during this busy and dangerous time.

Hmm, well that was my quote and my experience is that I actually WROTE the original QATB/QAS & QRFS management software used in the region offices from 1988 through to at least 2000 (and probably still somewhere, do you have any old clipper dossy looking programs lurking anywhere)

It was the best fun I had in years. The constant changing of requirement ensured continued work with the installations statewide allowing me to go from nowhere to gold frequent flyer on Australian (now QANTAS).

My favorite story was the IT "expert" at QAS Beenleigh locking up the server and when after several attempts to get him to reboot it including turning it off at the power switch and then finally at the wall I was requested to drive there and fix it.

So 4 hours and 300km later I turn up to instantly find that the "vegetable" could not work on the server because the keyboard was plugged into his laptop and the server would not reboot because he was turning the monitor off and on.

So really, I am being unfair to potatoes and carrots by comparing him to them.....

MexicanBatman · 04-11-2010, 05:42 PM

112? I believe is different to 000 as I was told recently, can someone confirm this that it's a more direct service and able to be called from all phones not just mobiles

geckoGT · 04-11-2010, 05:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flappist

So really, I am being unfair to potatoes and carrots by comparing him to them.....

Yes you are, no offence but on a number of occasions you have been critical of 000 (ambulance) in QLD based on one experience, yet QAS handles near on a million call outs per year.

The example of what you have just said is one person that is not even a uniformed officer. And I might add this is on a system that is not in use now, has not been for at least 6 years and has actually been replaced at least twice since the late 90's.

Let me tell you, the service is very different now to what it was when I started in 2004 and in 2004 it was very different to the late 90's.

geckoGT · 04-11-2010, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MexicanBatman

112? I believe is different to 000 as I was told recently, can someone confirm this that it's a more direct service and able to be called from all phones not just mobiles

As far as I know 112 is the international number for emergency services, in australia it diverts automatically to 000. It is no quicker than calling 000 and 000 will work from all australian mobiles on all australian mobile service providers.

fmc351 · 04-11-2010, 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by geckoGT

As far as I know 112 is the international number for emergency services, in australia it diverts automatically to 000. It is no quicker than calling 000 and 000 will work from all australian mobiles on all australian mobile service providers.

Even if youre out of service area of your own povider. It will connect through which ever network is there.

geckoGT · 04-11-2010, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fmc351

Even if youre out of service area of your own povider. It will connect through which ever network is there.

That is what I thought, not sure if that happens with both 000 or just 112.

fmc351 · 05-11-2010, 01:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by geckoGT

That is what I thought, not sure if that happens with both 000 or just 112.

Im not sure on that, I only ever dialled 000 once when I witnessed a car accident but I may have had service at the time. My old phone used to display my service level, or a medical red cross if there was no service informing me I could still make emergency calls.

grandpa_spec_F6 · 05-11-2010, 11:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by flappist

My favorite story was the IT "expert" at QAS Beenleigh locking up the server *snip*
So really, I am being unfair to potatoes and carrots by comparing him to them.....

Not going to argue that there are some people who never deserve their 'expert' title

The majority of the time however, at least these days, things run fairly smoothly, and luckily the majority of our servers (except on the QCS side of things) are now centralized (currently being relocated to QEOC). Sure we have the odd regional server but they are all managed by DCW upstairs. The manager who's running the place is ex military and nothing seems to slip past him.