BORTAC

Project Description:

The BORTAC Communications System is an operational system that connects the dispatch centers of 12 Federal, State, and local law enforcement and public safety agencies in San Diego County. It has been a joint effort of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center (CTAC) of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and the Navy's Public Safety Center in San Diego. NIJ provided design and project management, CTAC provided funding for hardware and dedicated phone circuits, and the Navy provided technical management and a facility to be the central connect point for the circuits.

The implementation relies on the use of off-the-shelf communications circuits and radio system software to create a "patch" that connects different agencies' radio systems. The "patch" allows patrol/mobile units to achieve real-time, voluntary, and unencrypted voice communications interoperability. The "patch", once enabled, eliminates the need for the dispatcher to relay his or her officer's location and questions to the other dispatchers who repeat the information to their officers. The officers are able to speak directly to one another without the intervening relay process. The result is more accurate exchange of information and more timely response by each officer. Increased safety is an important result of the patching process. (NOTE: Each officer has to be operating within the existing coverage of his or her radio system. Officers cannot use this system if they leave their native region.)

The names of the participating agencies are displayed on a central computer screen. When two or more agencies request that they be connected, a dispatcher at the central location uses a mouse to connect the appropriate icons on the computer screen. At the same time the software connects the communication circuits into the equivalent of a conference call. In this case, the voices heard on the conference call are the audio portion of each agency's radio frequency that has been designated for that patch.

Multiple agencies can be patched together and multiple patches can be operating independently of one another. When the agencies have completed the operation they notify the central center and a dispatcher uses a few mouse operations to disconnect the participants. No agency is ever added to the patch unless that agency agrees. In this way the autonomy of each system is preserved.

Status Report:

The BORTAC testbed was established in June 1996 and initiated through a tabletop exercise involving real communications on December 4, 1996, with five different agencies.

Since December 1996, the BORTAC communications testbed has been utilized several times each month by law enforcement in the San Diego area for an array of activities, including regional auto-theft task force operations, truancy sweeps, counterdrug sweeps, police pursuits, special cross-border events, gang suppression, etc. Though the system was anticipated to support "pop-up" operations, such as pursuits moving amongst jurisdictions, it has also been used to support planned operations wherein agencies agree to multi-agency operations with the agencies connected through the BORTAC system.

NIJ's Border Research and Technology Center and the Navy's Public Safety Directorate, were the technical managers of the BORTAC system during its development. The system is now operational and is managed by the users through a committee. The issues facing the system all revolve around interagency procedures and protocols. As a consequence, the San Diego Police Department and the California Highway Patrol have assumed joint leadership of the BORTAC system and are now taking the lead in guiding its progress.

The BRTC and the Navy will continue to participate and provide guidance and reminders of lessons learned on an as-needed basis. This signals a successful enterprise in which Federal funding and technical know-how were used to initialize and organize a system that is now in the hands of state and local agencies with border enforcement responsibilities. The agencies are pleased with the system and in the words of one user: "[It] . . . sounded like officers from other agencies were in the backseats of our vehicles."

Replication of this communications testbed is being implemented in Imperial County, California. Another system is in the design phases for the San Gabriel Valley of Los Angeles county and a fourth system has been requested for Brownsville, TX. As in the San Diego system, the NIJ, through its Western and Border Centers, the CTAC and the Navy are all working jointly to make these systems a reality.

Participating Agencies:

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