Dispatch Services

The Vendor is required to provide comprehensive, continuous dispatch services in support of the university’s public safety, facilities, and emergency operations.
•    24/7/365 dispatch operations – continuous coverage for all shifts, holidays, and weekends without interruption. 
•    Call handling – answer, screen, and direct emergency and non-emergency calls in accordance with university policies, procedures, and protocols. 
•    Incident management – log incidents, dispatch appropriate personnel or notify designated responders, track incident status, and document resolution. 
•    Triage and escalation – assess call urgency and escalate critical incidents immediately in accordance with established university and regional emergency response protocols. 
•    Communication – maintain continuous communication with field staff and relay timely and accurate information updates as conditions evolve. 
•    Consultation on policy and protocol changes – the contractor shall consult with the university chief of police and designee regarding any proposed emergency communications center policy, procedure, or protocol changes that may materially affect dispatch services provided to the university or impact campus safety operations. 
•    Act support and emergency notification assistance – the contractor shall assist the university in its efforts to comply with timely warning and emergency notification requirements under the act. 
•    Such assistance shall include, as applicable, the prompt relay of information regarding act reportable crimes, immediate notification of university officials designated to evaluate timely warnings, support for emergency notification dissemination processes, and cooperation in documenting incidents for act reporting and compliance purposes.
- Requirements
1. Call types:
•    Routine service requests, including but not limited to: maintenance-related calls, door lock and unlock assistance, disabled vehicles, telephone assistance, lost and found reporting, and support for special events 
•    Monitoring and documentation of routine and non-routine activities, including bank runs, illegal parking enforcement, area checks, officer status updates, and in-service and out-of-service designations 
•    Efficient triage, handling, and transfer of emergency calls to appropriate emergency responders or communication centers 
•    Support for critical incidents or significant event responses, including coordination with the university emergency operations center and Farmville emergency communications center
2. Duty roster: 
•    The contractor shall maintain a current duty roster including on-duty and on-call staff; the roster shall be accessible to the dispatch team, designated university stakeholders, campus police, and the Farmville emergency communications center.
3. Call logging: 
•    Provide detailed digital logging of all calls and incidents including, at a minimum: caller identification (when available), date and time of call, nature of the request or incident, actions taken, personnel notified or dispatched, resolution and closure time.
4. Operational standards: 
•    Operate dispatch services in a manner consistent with a professional public safety dispatch center and shall employ recognized industry best practices for public safety dispatch operations.
5. Media and public information requests: 
•    Direct all media inquiries, public information requests, or external communications relating to the university to the office. 
•    The contractor shall not independently release information to the media regarding university-related incidents without prior authorization.
6. System integration and technology:
•    The solution should integrate with existing dispatch, alarm, and communications systems, subject to technical feasibility and available interfaces. 
•    Support investigation and troubleshooting of system conflicts or failures related to integrated systems. 
•    Clearly identify which alarms, systems, and notifications will be managed, monitored, or accessed directly by the contractor and which will be managed, monitored, or accessed by the Farmville emergency communications center. 
•    Such alarms, systems, and notifications may include, but are not limited to, fire safety systems; electronic door and lockdown systems; panic or duress alarms; cryogenic freezer alarms; emergency equipment transmissions; and other life-safety systems. 
•    The solution should minimize unnecessary redundancies while maintaining safety-focused redundancies appropriate for emergency operations. 
•    The solution shall ensure full coordination with the Farmville emergency communications center and integrate, as applicable, with university it and telecommunication systems, the central square records management system, and the university radio interface infrastructure. 
•    The solution shall provide deployable technology capable of operating primarily over cellular- or radio-based communications to support reliability, resiliency, and continuity of operations. 
•    Solutions that include WI-FI as a secondary or redundant connectivity option are preferred.