Daupler dispatch delayed 3-4 weeks

CHENEY — Implementation of the city’s new afterhours utility service dispatch system has been put on hold and won’t be initiated for another 3-4 weeks.

Light Department Director Steve Marx said the July 20 startup 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.

Marx said the company didn’t specific what the problem that delayed the trial launch, other than they wanted to make sure the rollout was successful and that new customers are provided the same level of service as existing customers.

“They are working through some ‘complexities’ and are willing to extend the length of the pilot program,” Marx said.

The City Council agreed to a one-year, $4,800 contract with Daupler in November, 2020, for the trial program, which began with preliminary system work and consultations in January this year. Marx said he has requested the extension of the contract into the first couple months of 2022, but has nothing in writing yet.

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 for now, the current system of reporting utility service problems remains in effect. If the Daupler system, once initiated, proves valuable the city would enter into an extended contract that would likely cost about $12,000 annually.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].