Emergency Medical Services: The EMS stations dataset consists of any location where emergency medical services (EMS) personnel are stationed or based out of, or where equipment that such personnel use in carrying out their jobs is stored for ready use. Ambulance services are included even if they only provide transportation services, but not if they are located at, and operated by, a hospital. If an independent ambulance service or EMS provider happens to be collocated with a hospital, it will be included in this dataset. The dataset includes both private and governmental entities. This dataset is comprised completely of license free data. The Fire Station dataset and the EMS dataset were merged into one working file. TGS processed as one file and then separated for delivery purposes. Records with "-DOD" appended to the end of the [NAME] value are located on a military base, as defined by the Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastructure (DISDI) military installations and military range boundaries. Text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. All diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics. The currentness of this dataset is indicated by the [CONTDATE] field. Based upon this field, the oldest record dates from 01/05/2005 and the newest record dates from 08/15/2008.

Emergency Operation Centers: The physical location at which the coordination of information and resources to support domestic incident management activities normally takes place. An EOC may be a temporary facility or may be located in a more central or permanently established facility, perhaps at a higher level of organization within a jurisdiction. EOCs may be organized by major functional disciplines (e.g., fire, law enforcement, and medical services), by jurisdiction (e.g., Federal, State, regional, county, city, tribal), or some combination thereof. In instances where TGS could not verify the location of an Emergency Operations Center due to non-cooperation of the entity and to the exhaustion of all possible alternative resources, its location was depicted at the center of the service area. In cases where an Emergency Operations Center has a mobile unit, TGS captured the location of the mobile unit as a separate record. This record represents where the mobile unit is stored. Text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. All diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics. The currentness of this dataset is indicated by the [CONTDATE] attribute. Based upon this attribute, the oldest record dates from 03/28/2007 and the newest record dates from 05/04/2007.

Public Safety Answering Point Boundaries: According to the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) is a facility equipped and staffed to receive 9-1-1 calls. The service area is the geographic area within which a 911 call placed using a landline is answered at the associated PSAP. This dataset only includes primary PSAPs. Secondary PSAPs, backup PSAPs, and wireless PSAPs have been excluded from this dataset. Primary PSAPs receive calls directly, whereas secondary PSAPs receive calls that have been transferred by a primary PSAP. Backup PSAPs provide service in cases where another PSAP is inoperable. Most military bases have their own emergency telephone systems. To connect to such system from within a military base it may be necessary to dial a number other than 9 1 1. Due to the sensitive nature of military installations, TGS did not actively research these systems. If civilian authorities in surrounding areas volunteered information about these systems or if adding a military PSAP was necessary to fill a hole in civilian provided data, TGS included it in this dataset. Otherwise military installations are depicted as being covered by one or more adjoining civilian emergency telephone systems. In some cases areas are covered by more than one PSAP boundary. In these cases, any of the applicable PSAPs may take a 911 call. Where a specific call is routed may depend on how busy the applicable PSAPS are (i.e. load balancing), operational status (i.e. redundancy), or time of date / day of week. If an area does not have 911 service, TGS included that area in the dataset along with the address and phone number of their dispatch center. These are areas where someone must dial a 7 or 10 digit number to get emergency services. These records can be identified by a "Y" in the [NON911EMNO] field. This indicates that dialing 911 inside one of these areas does not connect one with emergency services. This dataset was constructed by gathering information about PSAPs from state level officials. In some cases this was geospatial information, in others it was tabular. This information was supplemented with a list of PSAPs from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Each PSAP was researched to verify its tabular information. In cases where the source data was not geospatial, each PSAP was researched to determine its service area in terms of existing boundaries (e.g. city and county boundaries). In some cases existing boundaries had to be modified to reflect coverage areas (e.g. entire county north of Country Road 30). However, there may be cases where minor deviations from existing boundaries are not reflected in this dataset, such as the case where a particular PSAPs coverage area includes an entire county, and the homes and businesses along a road which is partly in another county. Text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. All diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics.

Emergency Medical Services: The EMS stations dataset consists of any location where emergency medical services (EMS) personnel are stationed or based out of, or where equipment that such personnel use in carrying out their jobs is stored for ready use. Ambulance services are included even if they only provide transportation services, but not if they are located at, and operated by, a hospital. If an independent ambulance service or EMS provider happens to be collocated with a hospital, it will be included in this dataset. The dataset includes both private and governmental entities. This dataset is comprised completely of license free data. The Fire Station dataset and the EMS dataset were merged into one working file. TGS processed as one file and then separated for delivery purposes. Records with "-DOD" appended to the end of the [NAME] value are located on a military base, as defined by the Defense Installation Spatial Data Infrastructure (DISDI) military installations and military range boundaries. Text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. All diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics. The currentness of this dataset is indicated by the [CONTDATE] field. Based upon this field, the oldest record dates from 01/05/2005 and the newest record dates from 08/15/2008.

Emergency Operation Centers: The physical location at which the coordination of information and resources to support domestic incident management activities normally takes place. An EOC may be a temporary facility or may be located in a more central or permanently established facility, perhaps at a higher level of organization within a jurisdiction. EOCs may be organized by major functional disciplines (e.g., fire, law enforcement, and medical services), by jurisdiction (e.g., Federal, State, regional, county, city, tribal), or some combination thereof. In instances where TGS could not verify the location of an Emergency Operations Center due to non-cooperation of the entity and to the exhaustion of all possible alternative resources, its location was depicted at the center of the service area. In cases where an Emergency Operations Center has a mobile unit, TGS captured the location of the mobile unit as a separate record. This record represents where the mobile unit is stored. Text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. All diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics. The currentness of this dataset is indicated by the [CONTDATE] attribute. Based upon this attribute, the oldest record dates from 03/28/2007 and the newest record dates from 05/04/2007.

Public Safety Answering Point Boundaries: According to the National Emergency Number Association (NENA), a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) is a facility equipped and staffed to receive 9-1-1 calls. The service area is the geographic area within which a 911 call placed using a landline is answered at the associated PSAP. This dataset only includes primary PSAPs. Secondary PSAPs, backup PSAPs, and wireless PSAPs have been excluded from this dataset. Primary PSAPs receive calls directly, whereas secondary PSAPs receive calls that have been transferred by a primary PSAP. Backup PSAPs provide service in cases where another PSAP is inoperable. Most military bases have their own emergency telephone systems. To connect to such system from within a military base it may be necessary to dial a number other than 9 1 1. Due to the sensitive nature of military installations, TGS did not actively research these systems. If civilian authorities in surrounding areas volunteered information about these systems or if adding a military PSAP was necessary to fill a hole in civilian provided data, TGS included it in this dataset. Otherwise military installations are depicted as being covered by one or more adjoining civilian emergency telephone systems. In some cases areas are covered by more than one PSAP boundary. In these cases, any of the applicable PSAPs may take a 911 call. Where a specific call is routed may depend on how busy the applicable PSAPS are (i.e. load balancing), operational status (i.e. redundancy), or time of date / day of week. If an area does not have 911 service, TGS included that area in the dataset along with the address and phone number of their dispatch center. These are areas where someone must dial a 7 or 10 digit number to get emergency services. These records can be identified by a "Y" in the [NON911EMNO] field. This indicates that dialing 911 inside one of these areas does not connect one with emergency services. This dataset was constructed by gathering information about PSAPs from state level officials. In some cases this was geospatial information, in others it was tabular. This information was supplemented with a list of PSAPs from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Each PSAP was researched to verify its tabular information. In cases where the source data was not geospatial, each PSAP was researched to determine its service area in terms of existing boundaries (e.g. city and county boundaries). In some cases existing boundaries had to be modified to reflect coverage areas (e.g. entire county north of Country Road 30). However, there may be cases where minor deviations from existing boundaries are not reflected in this dataset, such as the case where a particular PSAPs coverage area includes an entire county, and the homes and businesses along a road which is partly in another county. Text fields in this dataset have been set to all upper case to facilitate consistent database engine search results. All diacritics (e.g., the German umlaut or the Spanish tilde) have been replaced with their closest equivalent English character to facilitate use with database systems that may not support diacritics.