NORFOLK, Neb.-- An initiative to help people who help others, like first responders, was put on by Daycos, called Daycos for Good. They partner with communities to help transportation companies ensure they have products and services that best fit their needs.

Recently, they provided the Norfolk police and fire departments an $8,300 grant to upgrade their technology equipment. One thing this upgrade will help with is the Fire Division getting dispatch calls from the Police Division. 

The fire department has specialized reporting software, and the police station has dispatch software that wasn’t receiving proper communication between the two. To fix the problem properly, the fire department was able to purchase ImageTrend with a grant given by Daycos.

Norfolk Assistant Fire Chief Trever O’Brien said, “This allows us to take our ImageTrend reporting software and link it with the CAD system the Norfolk PD has been working on and put in place. This will transfer our call times and what units are responding to locations directly into our report.”

The fire department also bought an interface between the two software systems. Once dispatchers upload their information throughout the day into the system, it will now go directly and transfer to the fire department’s software. This creates a more efficient and less error-prone process.

The new software has also been easier for everyone to navigate, considering the old system was used through a keyboard.

According to O’Brien, “We can use soft-keys that can be clicked on, and it is more user-friendly. We can see more details on the call on one screen in the station. Before, we had to use the F-function keys to get to different areas, which allows us to get more information before leaving the station.”

“This might have an effect on all of us without even realizing it yet," O'Brien said. "We talked with several departments who have used this already, and it has lessened their incident reporting significantly. The other thing this is helping with is sleep deprivation.”