Mansfield And Foxboro Regional Dispatch Center Opens

MANSFIELD, MA—A regional dispatch center that will handle all emergency calls from Mansfield, Foxboro, Easton, and Norton opened in a Cold War-era concrete building the middle of F. Gilbert Hills State Forest on Thursday.

The Southeastern Massachusetts Regional Emergency Communications Center has the technology to pinpoint a caller's exact location and its initial 10 dispatchers will handle approximately 50,000 calls per year.

Foxborough and Mansfield began utilizing the system over the summer, temporarily working out of Foxborough Public Safety building and moving to the new location on November 19. Norton and Easton dispatchers will move in early December.

Calls made in one of the four towns will be sent directly to the regional dispatch center instead of going to state police first.

"This is all wireless 911 calls, wire line 911 calls, text to 911- they all come for communities we service," executive director for Southeastern Massachusetts Regional 911 District Rob Verdone told WJAR. "If you call 911 in one of our communities, it will come right here, so it doesn't go through that three to four minute process. We shave that off."

The regional dispatch center will improve emergency response times for police, fire, and EMS, serve as a command post emergency operations center for Gillette Stadium events, and will save approximately $2 million per year.