EATON — During a Wednesday, July 26, Preble County Commission meeting, PC Council on Aging Executive Director Shelley Ratliff provided an update on the PCCOA’s transportation program, calling it “very exciting news.”

“All of our vehicles have cameras in them now,” she said. “Some of them have anywhere from two to five cameras. The big ones we can see right back inside and then more importantly, the ramp area, so we feel pretty good that we’re covered there. We ordered our laptops which will have GPS installed on them. Every vehicle will have a laptop.”

County commissioners have signed a memorandum of understanding with the agency for the PCCOA to provide transportation during evacuations and any emergency transportation as needed. “Thank you for thinking about that ahead of time,” Ratliff said. “And making sure that we’ve got that covered. Because of that, with our MOU, we qualified for FirstNet which is through AT&T, which gives us discounts on our phones and our monthly service and would give us better reception during an emergency.”

The new systems installed on the laptops will be different than what the drivers are used to, but will be more efficient, according to Ratliff. “They won’t know until they get there who they’re picking up. But instead of worrying about how they’re going to get there, the GPS system will assist them, which will help a lot with confusion and any kind of questions that they might get,” she explained.

The drivers’ current system and the new system will be operated at the same time for approximately a month, according to Ratliff, before fully transitioning to the new system.

Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on Twitter @emowenjr.