New York's overbudget consolidated Emergency Communications Transformation Program (ECTP), which brings together police and fire 911 services into one happy package, has had a rough go of it. Indeed, just last month Comptroller John Liu rejected a $286 million contract request for the project citing its soaring budget and lack of organization. So now ECTP is...looking to NASA for help? Oh yes, it most certainly is.
The Daily News is reporting that the emergency services program is talking with the space agency's Independent Verification and Validation office about helping them troubleshoot the system, which is years behind schedule and hundreds of millions over budget. The hope is that the millions that NASA would charge us would still be less than the $51.4 million that Gartner consultants wanted for five years of similar services.
And as crazy as a space agency working on a 911 system sounds, NASA's IV&V office is actually not a bad fit. According to their website they specialize in applying "software engineering best practices to evaluate the correctness and quality of critical and complex software systems," specifically asking questions like "Does the software exhibit behaviors exactly as intended" and "Does the software exhibit expected behaviors under adverse conditions?" Which are exactly the kinds of questions we want people asking about our critical and complex emergency communications system!
Meanwhile, the ECTP program as it currently exists keeps on keeping on despite complaints from some firefighters that it "has sent them to bad addresses and jeopardized lives."
