Currently, SouthCom Combined Dispatch Center (SouthCom) provides fire, police, and emergency medical dispatching services for the Villages of Matteson, Olympia Fields, Park Forest, and Richton Park. The service area covers over 1,923 square miles within Cook and Will Counties and serves a population of approximately 65,000 citizens. SouthCom dispatched 65,155 calls for service and answered over 119,000 phone calls in 2010.
Since its inception in 2001, SouthCom has a history of providing the highest level of life safety and property preservation to the citizens we serve. After almost two and a half years of work, SouthCom continues to enhance its dispatching services by upgrading its aging ComputerAided Dispatch (CAD) and Records Management System with a new state-of-the-art system. This new technology will afford the Telecommunicators a more integrated and streamlined application for taking inbound emergency 9-1-1 calls and dispatching the proper resources to mitigate the emergency in a more timely and efficient way. Our state-of-the-art CAD system is customized to fit our needs, thereby ensuring the highest level of customer service at all times.
In 2002, SouthCom Dispatch Center was relocated to its current location at 21113 Dettmering Drive on the second floor of Matteson’s Fire Headquarters. Inside the dispatch center itself, you will find personnel on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, trained and ready to answer 9-1-1 calls and assist in responding to fire and police units via radio and mobile data terminals installed in all first-tier response vehicles.
The Center is staffed by a Shift Commander and a team of cross-trained Telecommunicators on duty in each of the three operating shifts. We also have several power shifts to help meet the demands placed on the center during our busiest time periods. All of our Telecommunicators are certified in Emergency Medical Dispatch (EMD) and provide pre-arrival “self-help” instructions to citizens during medical emergencies.