The KC metro area has developed an innovative system for locating 9-1-1 calls on the region’s trails. While most cell phones can now send their location to the 9-1-1 call centers, it’s still difficult for police and paramedics to locate those calls on the trail and find the best access point for emergency vehicles.
The Mid-America Regional Council’s Trail Safety Initiative is putting trail maps and access points into 9-1-1 databases, and putting up location markers along the trails. The Black Hoof Trail in Lenexa served as the pilot test for the system, which now includes trails in Leavenworth, Sugar Creek, and Riverside. The system is quite unique and has been receiving national attention. Contact your city’s parks and recreation department to ask for your city to be included.
Regional trail-locator system will improve public safety response
From the Mid-America Regional Council Transportation Matters newsletter.
More than 50 percent of calls to 9-1-1 in the Kansas City metro are made from wireless phones. In most instances, callers can appropriately identify their location with an address. But it’s much harder for callers who are hiking or biking on a trail to provide an exact location to 9-1-1 personnel in the case of an emergency. And in emergency situations, every second counts.
MARC’s Public Safety program has been working with local communities to create a comprehensive trail-locator system that helps 9-1-1 personnel and first responders more quickly identify a caller’s location during an emergency. The Kansas City Regional Trail Safety Initiative involves GPS and map data, a unique address grid system, and locator signs on trails. The pilot phase was recently completed, and the goal is to expand the project to the entire nine-county bistate metro.
For 9-1-1 callers who use a wireless phone on area trails, while the cellular tower closest to the caller may provide a general indication of their location, that information is not usually specific enough for rescue personnel to deliver assistance quickly. Many trails are off roadways or in remote areas. For those trails not yet mapped, wireless 9-1-1 calls appear to be coming from open fields. Dispatchers may not know the nearest point of entry to the trail, whether there are obstacles that will prevent or complicate getting a response vehicle to an incident, or sometimes even which jurisdiction’s emergency responders should be sent.
The city of Lenexa, Kan., dealt with a trail emergency incident several years ago that made them recognize the difficulty in locating people on trails isn’t just a city issue. It’s a regional issue, since trails often span multiple jurisdictions. So the city contacted MARC to discuss forming a workgroup to develop a regional approach to the problem.
An early challenge was figuring out how to assign addresses to locator signs that would be installed along selected trails, since there is no common street-based, region-wide address grid used in Greater Kansas City. The workgroup set up a new regional grid and developed a unique addressing system — compatible with existing 9-1-1 dispatch software — by assigning identifying numbers and letters to the location in the grid where a trail is located. Strategically placed locator signs along trails provide information similar to street addresses. In case of an emergency, callers simply find the nearest sign and provide 9-1-1 personnel with the seven-character address.
Lenexa started the region’s first pilot project on the Black Hoof Trail surrounding Lake Lenexa. Since then, cities such as Leavenworth, Kan., Riverside, Mo., and Sugar Creek, Mo., also have installed locator signs on some of their trails. The region’s trail-locator initiative has received national attention, and local jurisdictionshave won awards for their public safety efforts on trailways.
MARC’s Public Safety staff is working with participating local governments to clarify what mapping data must be gathered, provide technical support, train dispatchers and responders on the trail-locator system, and help coordinate outreach to highlight the adoption of the program in specific communities. It is also researching possible grant opportunities to help fund expansion of the project.
The long-term goal is to inventory all the mapped trails in the region with details about access points, obstacles and other key information to help dispatchers zero in on a location. As an added benefit, participating jurisdictions think the emergency locator signs help deter crime and encourage people to be more vigilant and conscious of their surroundings while hiking and biking on trails.
To learn more about adding the Kansas City Regional Trail Safety Initiative in your jurisdiction, contact Saralyn Hayes at 816/701-8314.
