Box Systems

[Guest Fonz1215]

What is a port chester box system?

[Guest DFFD227]

Tarrytown does the box system as well.

[WAS967 97]

Sleepy Hollow as well.

[Guest JQP442]

As far as using a box system, many fire depts in the country use box's. In fact, MOST places have gone to using boxes for calls. There is no reason that 60 control couldn't use a "box system". It is my opinion that we all go to using boxs. For one thing, it streamlines the number of things that a IC needs to think about.

[WAS967 97]

Could someone explain, for the uninitiated, how a box system works?

[tbendick 27]

As far as using a box system, many fire depts in the country use box's. In fact, MOST places have gone to using boxes for calls. There is no reason that 60 control couldn't use a "box system". It is my opinion that we all go to using boxs. For one thing, it streamlines the number of things that a IC needs to think about

Funny thing is that, as FDNY talks about the new CAD system, there is a good chance that FDNY could drop the Box system.

The two things that would make the Box system a thing of the past is GPS and Geo Dispatching system.

Currently every address in NYC is assigned to a Box. Each box has 5 alarms of units assigned to it.

With the new system the computer could pick units based on GPS.

As well there would be no limit on alarms.

[Stench60 29]

I really didn't want to get involved in this discussion, but now that it has been seperated from the 60 control issue it's a little less volatile.

The misconception is that Port Chester operates a "Box" system, it doesn't. With the exception of certain places of high risk ( schools, hospitals, care facilities) which receive a full department response, the vestiges of the box system were eliminated in the mid 1990's.

What is incorrectly called a "box" is actually a company call or dual company call as the case may warrant. The company call merely informs the department which two engine companies are to respond to the alarm. The system is based on the dispatch of the first due engine to the that particular address ( district engine ) as well as the duty engine for that month which is rotated on a monthly basis amongst the 5 engine companies and responds throughout the village as well as to mutual aid and stand-bys. Along with the two engine companies a ladder, the rescue and either one of the emergency trucks ( E-58 or E-59) is also dispatched. Also, from 7am to 7pm, you will have the RBFD dispatched if the call is within the village of Rye Brook.

To use the term box is to mean a specified location that corresponds to a specified box number. In Port Chester two "box numbers", as some have called them, that are exactly the same can dispatched to locations literally miles apart.

I hope that this explained the situation a little clearer for those who don't know the PC system, if not I'll try to answer your questions.

[Remember585 815]

I know Ossining still has a box system too. We did until 1998 or 1999, when we decided to modernize our system. It would of been a better system if the desk officer was more proficient in which apparatus went on what assignments.