[Archived] Arlington, Alexandria to Collaborate on Next Generation 911

For Immediate Release: October 21, 2017

• County and City develop Memo of Understanding

• Agreement covers procurement, support of integrated 911 call processing system

• Furthering National Capital Region goals of interoperability, improved efficiency

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) 911 call processing system. The Arlington County Board unanimously approved the MOU at its meeting today.

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 911 outages or overload of the 911 system due to a major event or incident. Sharing also will reduce costs and increase interoperability for 911 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 911 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 911 will offer many benefits to the public, dispatchers, and first responders, as Alexandria and Arlington work together to implement this important technology.”

System will allow future integration with other jurisdictions

With a shared system, the two jurisdictions will receive and process their own 911 and 10-digit non-emergency line telephone calls from either jurisdiction’s primary or backup 911 center. The system will also allow seamless integration with neighboring jurisdictions in the future.

The shared system will provide the foundation for further deployment of future Next Generation 911 system capabilities that will provide more efficient routing of 911 calls to the appropriate 911 center, and will allow 911 callers to submit information in the form of images and video to 911 centers.

The Arlington and Alexandria combined NG 911 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.  

For media inquiries, contact Craig T. Fifer, Director of Communications and Public Information, City of Alexandria, at craig.fifer@alexandriava.gov or 703.746.3965; or Mary Curtius, Media Director, Arlington County, at mcurtius@arlingtonva.us or 703.228.7943.

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