In Command
Trenton deploys its first command vehicle to support task forces
Trenton is the state capital of New Jersey and the Mercer County seat. The city has nearly 85,000 residents and is comprised of seven square miles of largely compact residential structures. As the state capital, a large influx of state employees is present Monday through Friday. Trenton also is the home to several federal offices, including a federal courthouse.
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The city is located on the Delaware River, so in addition to fire and rescue response, the Trenton Fire Department manages a wide variety of technical responses including search and recovery operations, and water rescue and recovery.
Established as a volunteer company in 1747, Trenton Fire and Emergency Services is one of the nation’s oldest fire departments. The department is a Level 3 HAZMAT team for the state of New Jersey. It operates three task forces to handle the technical rescue, HAZMAT, and water search and recovery.
Although most of the department’s work is in the county, the city has a cooperative agreement with surrounding cities to provide mutual aid – including across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania.
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Mobile Command Post Enhances Effectiveness
To improve its effectiveness, the Trenton Fire Department recently took delivery of its first ever mobile command vehicle. The unit will allow specialized teams to manage, organize and monitor incidents for long periods of time using state-of-the-art communications and surveillance technology.
“We’ve never had a command vehicle, so in past situations where we needed to have a remote command post, we didn’t have a vehicle to stage it in,” said Battalion Chief W. Graham Smith of the Trenton Fire Department. “We would be in a car or a rescue apparatus, or we’d try to find a suitable building in the area, but often we were just exposed to the elements, and subject to the distractions and noise outside.”
Smith is the Deputy Coordinator for Emergency Management in the city as well as the director of Trenton Emergency Medical Services. Employed by the city of Trenton for 26 years, he has risen through its ranks.
The new command vehicle will be critical in the department’s day-to-day operations for larger and longer duration fires, for example, as well as extended operations for HAZMAT incidents, water rescues and other events.
Members of the Trenton Fire Department are looking forward to having a controlled climate and environment where their team can remotely monitor the incident scene – while being away from the noise of the incident itself.
Commercial Chassis and Hybrid Drive
Trenton’s new Pierce Mobile Command Vehicle is built on a Kenworth T370 chassis with a 22-foot aluminum command unit body. The unit has a slide-out module that offers enough space for a 5-foot conference table, and a rear area that can be closed off from the rest of the unit for interoperability communications or private conferences.
The command vehicle was purchased with a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and a good portion of the grant went into the truck. The balance of the grant funds were used to hire a consultant who worked with emergency management staff rewriting the city’s emergency operations plan and to upgrade emergency operations equipment.
The command vehicle will make the Trenton Fire Department more efficient and effective in protecting people and property within its operations area. The hybrid command vehicle will also use less fuel than comparable diesel-only vehicles.
“The new Pierce command vehicle will be a tremendous benefit on longer duration events and at remote locations outside of the city,” said Smith. “The vehicle has an excellent communication system so we can move it to a remote location and have it serve as a command post where we wouldn’t necessarily have to operate from our emergency operations center here at fire headquarters.”
Sophisticated Equipment to Assess and Direct
A camera mounted on a 30-foot mast can monitor scenes in remote locations and provide the video feed into the vehicle, where it can be displayed on screens. Personnel in the command vehicle can assess an emergency scene without having to step out of the truck, and incidents can also be recorded from start to finish on DVR.
An interoperable, Internet-based communications system allows different and otherwise incompatible radio systems to seamlessly connect with each other, and brings in video feeds. Personnel can integrate cell phone feeds to allow multiple personnel from various departments to speak with each other through this system.
Two or three people can comfortably operate in the communications area and there are four workstations in the command area of the vehicle. A removable table can be installed for command staff meetings so five to six people can be comfortably seated in the command area. With the slide-out deployed, up to 10 people can work or meet in the command vehicle at the scene of an incident in a controlled environment.
The command vehicle is also satellite capable, with a SAT phone and satellite TV. All of the wide screens are networked with all the workstations so personnel can feed anything into the monitors mounted throughout the vehicle.
“The Pierce mobile command vehicle will be an excellent addition to the department’s fleet to support all major events. It’s hard to know how often it’ll be called on because the incidents are never predictable, but I’d say on average, probably a couple times a month,” said Smith. “This unit will keep Trenton command out of the rain in a controlled and efficient environment, while helping reduce the department’s environmental footprint.”
Pierce Dealer Plays Important Role
A sales and engineering team from Pierce, and local dealer Fire & Safety Services, Ltd. of South Plainfield, NJ, helped Smith and Battalion Chief Todd Fell determine some of the technology that they wanted to put on the vehicle, and work on ideas to put into the vehicle specifications. Smith and Fell met with members of Pierce and Fire & Safety throughout the preconstruction, build and delivery process. Each week, Pierce provided Smith with photos of the vehicle, so he and his staff could see it develop into a one-of-a-kind command vehicle.
Mechanical and electronics training on the vehicle has been completed. However, Smith plans to repeat the mechanical training on a “train the trainer” basis to spread the knowledge so that everyone can at least operate the vehicle to bring it to an incident scene. Then, individuals who have had the electronics training would undertake vehicle operations at an incident.
“Having the mobile command vehicle will facilitate a more efficient operation of our command staff which, of course, is required by the National Incident Management System nationally,” Smith said. “This vehicle – with its excellent communications capability – will allow command staff to operate in a more controlled environment with the tools necessary to get the job done efficiently.”
Vehicle Fact Sheet
The Trenton Fire Department’s new Pierce Mobile Command Vehicle features a hybrid power plant. “The concept is based on the same principle as a hybrid automobile, and it helps move our department in the direction of going green, reducing fuel costs, and reducing Trenton’s carbon footprint,” said Smith. The Kenworth T370 is part of a product line that earned the chassis an EPA Clean Air Excellence award in 2009. While the T370 has been employed in a number of applications nationwide, Trenton’s mobile command vehicle is the first Kenworth hybrid used for this purpose.
The system switches seamlessly between modes of operation – electric-only, combined diesel and electric, and diesel-only. And because it runs on electric-only at speeds below 30 mph, the hybrid performs especially well in stop-and-go traffic, which can save a significant amount of fuel.
Other notable features and technologies found on this mobile command vehicle include:
- 22-foot body length
- 70.75-inch interior walkway height
- Slide-out module on driver’s side
- Fully automatic leveling system
- Automatic folding step (Quantum style)
- Awnings on driver’s and passenger’s side at roofline
- Diesel generator, water cooled
- Will-Burt tower mounted camera on pneumatic mast
- Will-Burt Night Scan Chief 7.5-foot scene lights
- Satellite receivers
- Split screen, high definition LCD monitors
- Interoperable communications system generator
- Roof mounted, HVAC system
- Computer network with 10 ports
- Hybrid PBX three-line telephone network with up to eight extensions
- Cellular terminal SX5T Telular digital/analog phone cell
- Satellite phone system
- Network ready printer
- Pro Vision camera system on passenger side
- 4-Channel DVR
The result is a state-of-the-art command vehicle that conserves fuel while providing Trenton’s command professionals with the tools to effectively do their job without interference from environmental distractions.
By Tom Brandes
Tom Brandes is a freelance writer for a variety of subjects including manufacturing, fire and emergency, sustainability, technology, healthcare and more.