GlossaryDispatch and call records
Automatic location identification
Automatic location identification (ALI) is a 911-system feature that automatically presents location information associated with a call to the answering center.
Automatic location identification (ALI) is a 911-system feature that automatically presents location information associated with a call to the answering center. In traditional enhanced 911 systems, that information includes an address associated with the telephone. An ALI display should not automatically be treated as the confirmed location of the emergency.
What the location describes
The Alabama 911 Board's definitions describe ALI as a display of the telephone number, telephone location, and supplementary emergency-services information. This is a system description, not a promise that every call provides the same detail.
When reading a record, distinguish information supplied by a telephone system from an incident address established during the conversation. A caller may be reporting an event elsewhere. Location data also need their own context: an address, map coordinate, and generalized public map point are different representations.
Example
Hypothetical example: Someone calls from a business to report a collision outside a nearby transit entrance. The call screen supplies the business's registered address. The call taker records the transit entrance as the incident location after speaking with the caller.
Both locations can be valid within their fields. The first describes the telephone information received; the second describes the requested response location. A disagreement between them does not, on its own, show a recording error.
Common confusion
ALI concerns location-related information; automatic number identification concerns the incoming number. Geocoding is another process: converting a location description into coordinates. A map pin can therefore be derived from an address without being the original location information received with the call.
What varies
Oklahoma's terminology distinguishes traditional ALI from wireless location phases. For a particular dataset, inspect the field description and location source before making precision claims. Public releases can further generalize locations, so a displayed point may serve a different purpose from the information used by the answering center.