Prioritization of emergency calls

• US 9,420,116 B1
• Filed: 01/29/2015
• Issued: 08/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 01/29/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: TriTech Software Systems (CentralSquare Technologies, LLC)
• Original Assignee: TriTech Software Systems (CentralSquare Technologies, LLC)
• Inventors: Hamilton, Mark David, Newsome, Rochelle Rae, MacDonald, Scott Michael, Crosby, Paul L., Meng, Chen-Lu, Martin, Ken D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Woo, Stella L
• Application Number:
  US14/609,121
• Time in Patent Office: 565 Days
• Field of Search: 379/45, 455/404.1, 455/404.2
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 11/04 with alarm systems, e.g. fire, police or burglar alarm systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2242/04 for emergency applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/42357 where the information is provided to a monitoring entity such as a potential calling party or a call processing server
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5116 for emergency applications

Abstract

Systems and methods to prioritize emergency calls being placed to an emergency call center are based on geographical information, context information, and/or historical information associated with the emergency calls.

Claims

1. A system configured to prioritize incoming emergency calls to an emergency call center, the system comprising:

one or more hardware processors configured by machine-readable instructions to obtain geographical location information associated with incoming emergency calls such that, responsive to a first call being placed to the emergency call center by a first caller, a first geographical location is associated with the first call, and such that, responsive to a second call being placed to the emergency call center by a second caller, a second geographical location is associated with the second call; and

determine relative priority information regarding the first call and the second call based on the first geographical location and the second geographical location;

wherein determining the relative priority information includes comparing the first geographical location of the first call and the second geographical location of the second call with one or more geographical locations associated with one or more emergency calls that (1) have been answered by the emergency call center and/or (2) are in the process of being answered by the emergency call center; and

wherein an external database is queried, the database storing associations between telephone numbers and addresses.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more hardware processors are further configured by machine-readable instructions to:

present the first call and the second call to one or more emergency operators at the emergency call center in accordance with the determined relative priority information.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more hardware processors are further configured by machine-readable to:

obtain a first set of context information associated with the first call and a second set of context information associated with the second call;

wherein determination of the relative priority information is further based on the first set of context information and the second set of context information.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the first set of context information includes information regarding proximity between the first geographical location and one or more of a geographical landmark, a road, a railroad, and/or a bridge.

5. The system of claim 3, wherein the first set of context information includes information regarding proximity between the first caller and one or more of a geographical landmark, a road, a railroad, and/or a bridge.

6. The system of claim 3, wherein the one or more hardware processors are further configured by machine-readable instructions to:

obtain historical information associated with the incoming emergency calls such that, responsive to the first call being placed to the emergency call center, the history module obtains a first set of historical information is associated with the first call, and such that, responsive to the second call being placed to the emergency call center, a second set of historical information is associated with the second call;

wherein the first set of context information includes at least a portion of the first set of historical information; and

wherein the second set of context information includes at least a portion of the second set of historical information.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the historical information of an individual incoming emergency call includes one or more of a call frequency associated with a telephone number for the individual incoming emergency call and/or one or more emergency types based on previous emergency calls associated with a telephone number for the individual incoming emergency call.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the geographical location information is obtained based on one or both of metadata associated with incoming emergency calls.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the geographical location information is obtained based on one or both of global positioning system (GPS) information and/or information from one or more radio towers.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein determining the relative priority information includes:

comparing the first geographical location of the first call and the second geographical location of the second call with one or more geographical locations associated with one or more current emergency events.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the geographical location information is obtained before the incoming emergency calls are answered by the emergency call center.

12. A computer-implemented method for prioritizing incoming emergency calls to an emergency call center, the method being performed by one or more hardware processors configured by machine-readable instructions, the method comprising:

obtaining geographical location information associated with incoming emergency calls such that a first geographical location is associated with a first call being placed to the emergency call center by a first caller and a second geographical location is associated with a second call being placed to the emergency call center by a second caller; and

determining, responsive to the first call and the second call being placed to the emergency call center, relative priority information regarding the first call and the second call based on the first geographical location and the second geographical location;

wherein determining the relative priority information includes comparing the first geographical location of the first call and the second geographical location of the second call with one or more geographical locations associated with one or more emergency calls that (1) have been answered by the emergency call center and/or (2) are in the process of being answered by the emergency call center; and

wherein an external database is queried, the database storing associations between telephone numbers and addresses.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

presenting the first call and the second call to one or more emergency operators at the emergency call center in accordance with the determined relative priority information.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

obtaining a first set of context information associated with the first call; and

obtaining a second set of context information associated with the second call;

wherein the relative priority information is determined further based on the first set of context information and the second set of context information.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

obtaining historical information associated with the incoming emergency calls such that, responsive to the first call and the second call being placed to the emergency call center, a first set of historical information is associated with the first call and a second set of historical information is associated with the second call;

wherein the first set of context information includes at least a portion of the first set of historical information, and wherein the second set of context information includes at least a portion of the second set of historical information.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the first set of historical information includes one or more of a call frequency associated with a telephone number for the first call and/or one or more emergency types based on previous emergency calls associated with a telephone number for the first call.

17. The method of claim 12, wherein the first geographical location is obtained based on of metadata associated with the first call.

18. The method of claim 12, wherein the first geographical location is obtained based on one or both of global positioning system (GPS) information and/or information from one or more radio towers.

19. The method of claim 12, wherein the first set of context information includes information regarding proximity between the first geographical location and one or more of a geographical landmark, a road, a railroad, and/or bridge.

20. The method of claim 12, wherein the first set of context information includes information regarding proximity between the first caller and one or more of a geographical landmark, a road, a railroad, and/or a bridge.

21. The method of claim 12, wherein determining the relative priority information includes:

comparing the first geographical location of the first call and the second geographical location of the second call with one or more geographical locations associated with one or more current emergency events.

22. The method of claim 12, wherein the geographical location information is obtained before the incoming emergency calls are answered by the emergency call center.