Emergency dispatch could get a little faster for the price of sharing information about you and your family ahead of time.

The San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District this month launched a service called Smart911. The program is essentially a data-collection tool run by a private company.

The service is free because the San Ramon Valley was chosen as a test community for the service, said Fire Department spokeswoman Kim French.

Residents within the district's coverage area register at info.smart911.com and submit personal, medical and contact information. Then, when they call 911, dispatchers can pull up that profile and quicken the emergency response.

Having the user profiles readily available could save precious seconds at a time  the caller may be flustered and unable to recall details, the fire district points out.

The service will streamline emergency service in the area, said fire Chief Richard Price, whose district serves 167,500 residents in the San Ramon Valley.

"As an example, (the service) provides the ability to associate secondary contact information with an address, enabling call takers to contact a sibling if there is an emergency at an elderly parent's home," he said in a prepared statement.

The district especially encourages the elderly, families with children and anyone with a disability to register.

Those who sign up choose how much information to share, according to the district, adding that the data is maintained on a secure server. Only dispatchers have access to the user profiles, and they can see it only when that person calls 911, said French.

For more information on the service, visit www.firedepartment.org/smart911 or www.smart911.com.