Daupler startup passes without initiation

CHENEY — Implementation of a new afterhours utility service dispatch system will have to wait a couple more weeks.

According to Light Department Director Steve Marx, the July 20 initiation of the new incident response management system through Daupler, Inc. didn’t take place due to a technical glitch in the program. The system was to have begun routing calls for utility service directly to utility employees through a separate phone line rather than through the current system of calling 911 dispatchers.

“(It) appears to be a bigger issue than what they told me last week when we sent the launch date for July 20,” Marx said in an email.

Once activated, the system should “streamline communications between the City and the Public, shorten response time for utility outages or reported public works problems and to more efficiently serve its citizens.” The Daupler system also provides a higher degree of flexibility in reporting problems, with citizens provided the capabilities of checking on the status of repairs and even uploading photos to the system to help crews with their response.

Once online, calls to 509-498-9230 after 5 p.m. and on weekends will be directed to a Daupler call center in California where specific, utilities-trained dispatchers will gather information about the emergency. The call center can monitor single incidents or major outages, dispatch crews to the incident location based upon a hierarchy of availability provide updates such as number of homes impacted, whether or not crews are onsite, how long they’ve been there and projected repair times.

The system will also work with Public Works calls such as reporting of damage in city parks, downed stop signs and road issues. Daupler will automatically collect incident response data and digitize those records, enabling the city to access this information quickly have a more “accurate and complete understanding of work performed in the field.”

Marx said Daupler is working on the problem, and they hope to have a resolution soon. For now, the current system of reporting utility service problems remains in effect.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].