Department History

More Than 50 Years of Service to Bucks County Citizens

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 1970s, communications services for emergency medical services (EMS) and fire agencies were added to the system. The 1980's brought the purchase of a computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system used to improve the ability to process calls for service and unit status tracking. Additionally, improvements to the radio system and dispatcher training program were made.

1990s Into the New Millennium

The 1990s were busy with system enhancements that provided significant benefit and value to the services provided. This included significant upgrades to the CAD and radio systems, deployment of the first Enhanced 911 system in the suburban Philadelphia area, and implementation of an Emergency Medical Dispatch protocol that provides life-saving medical instructions. At the turn of the new millennium, Bucks County deployed a new and enhanced digital radio system for all EMS, fire and law enforcement agencies. Mobile data terminals (MDTs) were provided as an additional communication tool for the first responder community. Internally, the Training and Quality Assurance / Quality Improvement Sections were created to support a focus on continued professional development and employee skillset improvement. 

2010 to Present

Moving into the second decade of the new millennium, Bucks County continues to grow with technology with the addition to computerized mapping to assist our dispatchers is visualizing incident locations and enhanced cell phone locations. We are also exploring new technologies to enhance our operations and to comply with any local, Commonwealth or federal regulations.

Current Department Information

From the communications center's inception, Bucks County has continually met the needs of the quickly growing constituency and serves our county as a fully consolidated Enhanced 911 emergency communications system. With a trained dispatch staff of 125 dispatchers, supervisors and managers we currently provide emergency communications services for over 130 agencies (EMS, Fire, and Police). Bucks County Department of Emergency Communications Center staff always strives to serve our customers, the citizens and emergency responders of Bucks County.

Get a Tour

Visit our Tours page if you are interested in receiving a walk-through of our communications center.