Arlington County and the City of Alexandria have developed a Memo of Understanding (MOU) for the two jurisdictions to jointly plan, design, procure, install and operate a new, shared Next Generation (NG) 9-1-1 call processing system.
The two jurisdictions will continue to operate their own call centers. Sharing the system will increase resiliency for both jurisdictions in the future by ensuring continuity of operations when there are local 9-1-1 outages or overload of the 9-1-1 system due to a major event or incident. Sharing also will reduce costs and increase interoperability for 9-1-1 calls between the jurisdictions.
“This is an important step forward in the improvements the region has made to emergency systems since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the Pentagon,” Arlington County Board Chair Jay Fisette said. “Sharing a new 9-1-1 processing system with Alexandria will make both Arlington and Alexandria more resilient, while saving taxpayers money.”
”We are proud to continue a long tradition of regional collaboration, especially in the vital area of public safety,” said Alexandria Mayor Allison Silberberg. “Next Generation 9-1-1 will offer many benefits to the public, dispatchers, and first responders, as Alexandria and Arlington work together to implement this important technology.”
The Arlington and Alexandria combined NG 9-1-1 system is expected to take approximately one year to procure, test, and deploy. The two jurisdictions will jointly fund the system, with allocations determined through the County and City’s annual budget processes.
