Departments

Emergency Services

Emergency Communications

Department Information

Historical
The Bucks County Department of Emergency Communications was established on July 13, 1963 under the Bucks County District Attorney's Office to provide communications for county police departments. During the late 1970's Emergency Medical and Fire Communications services were added to the communications system. The 1980's brought the purchase of a computer-aided dispatch system used to improve the ability to process calls for service and unit status tracking. Improvements to the radio system and dispatcher training were made also.

In the 1990's we were able to implement many beneficial enhancements such as upgrading our CAD system, being the first suburban Philadelphia county to implement an Enhanced 9-1-1 system, beginning to provide Emergency Medical Dispatch (life-saving medical caller interrogation and instructions), and upgrade the county's radio infrastructure, just to name a few. The new millennium brought to Bucks County a new and enhanced digital radio system for all EMS, Fire and Police Departments, Mobile Data Terminals and the inception of both Quality Assurance and Training divisions to improve employee skills.

From the communications center's inception Bucks County has continually met the needs of the quickly growing constituency and now serves our county as a fully consolidated Enhanced 9-1-1 emergency communications system. With a trained dispatch staff of 125 (comprised of dispatchers, supervisors and managers), we currently provide emergency communications services for over 130 agencies (EMS, Fire and Police). Bucks County Department of Emergency Communications continually explores and researches new and improved ways to serve our customers, the citizens and emergency responders of Bucks County.

Contacts

Contact Name		Email
Peter D. Ference	Director	pdference@co.bucks.pa.us
Audrey R. Kenny	Deputy Director	arkenny@co.bucks.pa.us
Dennis R. Forsyth	Supt. of  Operations	drforsyth@co.bucks.pa.us
Tracy Carl	Director of Technology	tacarl@co.bucks.pa.us
Stephen H. Reichman	Supt. of Training	shreichman@co.bucks.pa.us
Michael W. Dydak	Fire/EMS Coordinator	mwdydak@co.bucks.pa.us
Jon R. Stoughton	CAD Coordinator	jrstoughton@co.bucks.pa.us
Jason R. Cottrell	CPE Administrator	jrcottrell@co.bucks.pa.us

 

General Informational Phone Numbers

Non-Emergencies 215-328-5191 Administrative Office Fax 267-885-1323 Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD), Mobile Data 215-328-5156 EMS, Fire & Police Communications Liaison 215-328-5169 Geo-File Coordination 215-328-5158 Radio Repair / Technology Division 215-345-3960 Records Requests 215-328-5164 Public Education / Tours* (*Please note: tours are limited to the observation vestibule only) 215-328-5155 Training / Recruitment information 215-328-5154

 

If you would like a walk-through of our communications center check out our Tours page.