The Metro Nashville Department of Emergency Communications (DEC) serves an integral role in ensuring public safety throughout Davidson County and the greater Nashville area and is responsible for responding to emergency and non-emergency calls, directing emergency response efforts and dispatching appropriate personnel. These activities are coordinated out of Nashville’s Emergency Communications Center.
Due to aging facilities and outdated technology, DEC embarked on a full renovation of the Emergency Communications Center building. The improvements included updates to the facility’s infrastructure and AV solutions and featured the addition of Planar fine pitch LED video walls to the operations room as well as an executive conference room.
Greater Situational Awareness
The operations room is located in a long, rectangular room on the ground floor of the building. DEC’s original design plans called for 85-inch displays to be installed at each end of the space. However, DEC’s IT Manager Tim Watkins suggested an alternate solution that led to Planar.
Watkins advocated for LED video walls to ensure content visibility from anywhere in the room, eventually leading to the addition of two nearly 12-foot-wide, 6-foot high (6x5) Planar® TVF Series LED video walls with 1.5mm pixel pitches. “The LED video walls serve our goal of providing situational awareness,” Watkins said. “We can split the video wall into different configurations and present content in multiple ways.”
Anthony Sallee, senior manager of AV Systems and Integration at ACCESS Data Network Solutions, the project AV integrator, said the client’s redundancy needs were met by the mission-critical design of the Planar TVF Series. “The Emergency Call Center is a 24x7 operation, so that was definitely a factor,” he said.
According to Sallee, the Planar TVF Series LED video walls also met the viewing demands of the Emergency Call Center, providing sharp and clear imagery. “When you walk into the space, those video walls are the focal points they are definitely impressive,” he said.
Data inputs to the Planar TVF Series LED video walls include live Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) SmartWay road cameras; real-time fire engine/truck coverage monitoring and alerting for optimized response times; and an emergency and non-emergency queue board displaying current agent availability status, number of calls waiting and longest wait time.
“We also regularly display the positive feedback we receive from the satisfaction surveys that we send to the public electronically,” Watkins said. “The responses allow employees to see what citizens are saying, which provides a great morale booster.”
Enhanced Uses and Flexibility
In the executive conference room, ACCESS Data Network Solutions installed a nearly 10-foot-long, 6-foot high (5x5) Planar TVF Series LED video wall with a 1.2mm pixel pitch that incorporates the same level of functionality as the other Planar TVF Series LED video walls. The intent of the Planar TVF Series LED video wall is to support flexible uses, Watkins said. “It provides lots of options for that space, whether it’s situational awareness, board meetings, video conferencing, interviews or press conferences,” he said. “The color and clarity are really amazing-it has exceeded our expectations.”
