Overview#
During a major incident, a PSAP's own unit resources are exhausted. Neighbouring agencies have available capacity, but real-time visibility into their unit positions and equipment readiness has never been shared. Setting up a full data integration between two PSAPs would take months. With the Dispatch Federation domain, a cross-organisational dispatch agreement can be established in minutes, with field-level data masking ensuring that each agency sees only the information they are authorised to access.
Mutual aid dispatch coordination becomes a governed, real-time capability rather than a series of phone calls between dispatchers.
Key Features#
- Cross-organisational dispatch agreements with four agreement types.
- Tiered access levels for unit visibility and inventory data.
- Field-level data masking enforced at every API and WebSocket boundary.
- Dual-approval workflow for agreement establishment.
- Real-time federated fleet status via masked WebSocket broadcasting.
- Equipment readiness views across federated organisations.
- Dispatch permission validation with capability mapping.
- Per-PSAP subscriber cache for efficient broadcast delivery.
Use Cases#
Neighbouring PSAPs establish mutual aid dispatch agreements during major incident planning, with the dual-approval workflow ensuring that both parties formally consent to the data sharing terms before any unit information is shared.
Regional emergency management coordinators access federated fleet status with privacy-preserving field masking, seeing unit availability and positions without accessing operational data that each agency considers sensitive.
Multi-agency incident commanders monitor equipment and unit readiness across federated organisations during large-scale events, coordinating resource deployment without requiring a temporary unified command structure.
PSAPs managing tiered access provide different partner agencies with different levels of visibility based on their agreement type, with masking enforced automatically at every data boundary rather than relying on application-level access controls.
Integration#
Integrates with dispatch management, unit tracking, and real-time WebSocket services for cross-organisational resource coordination.
Open Standards#
- GraphQL (June 2018 specification): all federation queries and mutations are exposed through a typed GraphQL API, with Strawberry-generated schema covering agreement lifecycle, federated fleet status, and capability introspection.
- GeoJSON (RFC 7946): coverage area boundaries for each dispatch agreement are stored and exchanged as GeoJSON geometries, enabling jurisdiction-scoped filtering of federated unit visibility.
- WebSocket Protocol (RFC 6455): real-time per-PSAP masked fleet status and agreement status-change notifications are delivered over persistent WebSocket connections, with per-subscriber topic routing.
- JSON Web Token (RFC 7519) with RS256: every federation API endpoint requires a verified RS256 JWT issued against a JWKS endpoint; agreement approval, suspension, and federated data queries all require authenticated, tenant-scoped tokens.
- OAuth 2.0 (RFC 6749): the authorisation framework underpinning token issuance and role-based access control enforced at each GraphQL permission class across the federation domain.
- ISO 8601: all agreement lifecycle timestamps, effective date, expiry date, approval timestamps, and broadcast event timestamps, are serialised as UTC ISO 8601 strings throughout the API and audit log.
- RFC 4122 UUID: dispatch agreement identifiers and tenant identifiers are version-4 UUIDs, ensuring globally unique, collision-free references across federated PSAP organisations.
Last Reviewed: 2026-02-24 Last Updated: 2026-04-14