RCMP aim to reduce accidental 911 calls
By Contributor
Last year, the Operations Communications Center (OCC) in Kelowna received a total of 221,073 911 calls, of which 46,033 were abandoned. Over half (53 percent) of those abandoned calls were generated from mobile devices, as more and more people are primarily using wireless technology as means of communication.
The RCMP Southeast District 911 OCC located in Kelowna is now campaigning to reduce this huge volume of accidental emergency calls received on a daily basis.
This facility offers a centralized service to a combined population of 660,000 people in a vast region between 70 Mile House to the Northwest, Golden to the Northeast, Princeton to the Southwest and Cranbrook to the Southeast. They have been experiencing an increasing trend in unintended emergency calls that in turn remove valuable time and resources off the road from attending true emergency cases.
More recently, between Apr. 6 and 19, the OCC in Kelowna received 1,936 abandoned calls with 58 percent of those coming from mobile devices. That’s an average of 138 calls per day in those two weeks alone that requires operators and police officers to track down and verify for emergency.
The Manager of Kelowna OCC, Staff Sgt. Troy Gross says, “in that span of 2 weeks alone in April of this year, we calculated that just over 110 hours were spent by operators in locating and verifying abandoned calls which equates to about 8 hours per day. That time is exponentially longer for police officers on the road to follow up on abandoned calls.”
Operators are required to call back dropped calls to determine whether they are real emergencies. If the operator is unable to get a hold of anyone, attempts to locate the caller are the next step then a police officer is dispatched to verify physically. Determining the location of a cell phone dropped/abandoned call requires much more effort. It means contacting the cell service provider to obtain subscriber information, obtaining their global positioning system coordinates and then dispatching police to the location.
Putting it in perspective, Staff Sgt. Gross explains that, “police officers are taken off the road for hours each day just to respond and verify abandoned calls. That precious time could be spent on investigating more serious offences and responding to real emergencies.”
Operators and officers alike are asking the public to please stay on the line if you accidentally call 9-1-1 and simply tell the operator there is no emergency. The operator will appreciate you saving them the time. Additionally, pick up the phone when you receive a call back after accidentally dialing the emergency line. This will avoid having a police officer knock on your door.
Other very useful tips to eliminate accidental dialing of 9-1-1 include:
• Removing your mobile phones and wireless devices from your pockets while you are driving or in a car to avoid accidental “pocket dialing”.
• Removing 9-1-1 from your programmed speed dials whether on your mobile phone or land line.
• If you realize you have dialed 9-1-1 by accident, please call back to let an operator know there is no emergency.
For more information on when to call for emergency assistance, please visit our website at www.bc.rcmp.ca.
