January 22, 2008
Mayor Announces 311 Switch
We wrote previously about it, but Mayor Adrian Fenty formally announced that the Mayor's Citywide Call Center number has changed from 727-1000 to 311 today. Fenty was joined at the announcement by Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, who implemented the same change in his city.
In a statement released to the press, Fenty addressed some of the concerns voiced by D.C. Council member Phil Mendelson and DCist commenters alike that the change might lead to confusion and an overburdening of the 911 system. Under the new plan, all police, fire and EMS calls, both emergency and non-emergency, should go through 911.
Some of the reasons Fenty included in his statement about why this change makes sense include:
- Other major cities including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco have already done the same thing. "San Francisco's 311 Customer Service Center has been a true milestone in government efficiency," said Mayor Newsom. "With well over one and a half million calls answered in over 75 languages, we have exceeded even our own expectations this past year. And we plan to integrate even more city services, providing residents with an easy and direct way to interact with their government."
- Residents will no longer have to worry whether their calls constitute an emergency -- they should just call 911 no matter what.
- Residents can now use 311 to request services such as trash pickup or smoke detector installation and connect directly to any city agency.
- Previous to the switch to two numbers 911 operators answered both 911 and 311 calls. There is now an increased staff dedicated to handling 911 calls exclusively, allowing them to better prioritize calls as they come in.
So what do you think? Does the Mayor have you convinced, or are you still saying this is a terrible idea?
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It was a terrible idea to have the same operators handling 911 and 311 calls to begin with, so if this is perpuating that bad idea then whatever. Just another day in the District of Chaos.
I never liked the 911/311 police split. It was confusing as to when to call which number -- is this really an emergency or not. This new system makes more sense.
I never liked the 911/311 police split. It was confusing as to when to call which number -- is this really an emergency or not. This new system makes more sense.
I like Fenty as much as the next guy, but I absolutely positively 1000% guarantee you that he is wrong about Chicago's setup.
They moved from 7 digit numbers to 311, but they absolutely positively do NOT tell people to call 911 no matter what.
For the other poster asking what might be an emergency or not, a good guideline is "do I need an emergency official to be physically present here right now", such as to confront a suspicious person or intervene in an in-progress crime, or search for offenders in a just-occurred crime, or administer CPR or transport wounded. If the immediate presence of the police or fire departments is not called for, than its probably something that can be sorted out at 311, and they could still write up a ticket to send the police if that is called for.
What constitutes (or constituted) a 911 emergency?
- An imminent or active medical crisis
- An imminent or active threat to a person's life or health
- Any crime in progress
I was very (and still am a little) skeptical about the 911/311 change. I feel better about it knowing we aren't the first out on the limb, especially if it is reaping benefits in the other cities that have made the switch. That said, the system is only as good as the staff answering the phone. We need good people there, but we also need enough of them.
It's a good thing that will eliminate caller confusion and likely save lives. Personal example: Last year I called 311 about a drunk, who was barely able to stand, and yet was weaving along the sidewalk. While talking to 311, he stumbled into the street, leaned against a car, and sat down with his legs in the traffic lane. I'd called 311 'cause he was on the sidewalk. But an ambulance came cause the operator correctly made the call to upgrade to 911 emergency response.
These calls happen every day. The 311/911 operators go through something like 6 weeks of intensive training to learn how to assess and handle an emergency. I don't. Let them make the call, and let us just know one number to dial.
I am so freaking confused....
I've been through this, and I can tell you how it plays out. In fear of liability, the city will tell the calltakers to send police/fire if a.) you insist, b.) if there is even the faintest hint that it could come back to bite the calltaker in the butt.
And how does this ultimately play out? In a complete and utter shortage of field resources in the MPD and the DCFD. They will be deployed incessantly, and there will be great(er) delays in getting help when needed.
It got to the point that Mayor Daley (true story, not widely known), once had to wait for an ambulance to come from near the fringes of Chicago to get him when he called about chest pains in the 90s in his home near downtown. The next week he announced the city was buying a bunch of BLS (basic life support) ambulances to supplement the ALS (advanced life support) ambulances already on hand.
I could scream it from the roofs, but you won't believe it til it happens. This has already been done starting in the 50s, and the whole point of 311 originally was to reduce the backlog on the 911 system. You put the city in the position of agreeing to oil every squeaky wheel, you are gonna find that there is no oil available when you call.
Guaranteed, and Fenty should not be mischaracterizing the procedures of larger cities to justify this insane proposal.
We should be like Japan that has separate emergency numbers for Police, Fire and Medical and stop lumping together EMS. Probably save us millions by not sending ambulances and fire trucks to every small problem -- oh wait, that just happened in San Francisco where they don't trust the actual person to report the emergency correctly and send all three "just in case."
This sucks. People have already started to parking with impunity in my parking spots during the weekend when the city parking enforcement is closed. At this rate, I get fed up with never being able to park and build a fence or just start calling.
Thom:
If it truly is your parking space (as opposed to public parking), the easiest solution is to go to a hardware store (or online) and buy the oversize orange stickers that say PRIVATE PARKING. These attach directly to the windshield and are hard to scrape off. After getting one of those stuck to their windshield chances are the parker won't do it again. But try to put it in a place where it doesn't actually impede their ability to drive. Most people leave them on the windshield, on the passenger side.
What is so confusing about it? I have been using 311 for several years in various cities that I've lived in, to report things like: traffic lights that are out, noisy parties/drunks on the street, strange people lurking about, cars parked in the wrong They are things that need to be taken care of, but they are not emergencies.
I generally define "emergency" as something involving blood or destruction, or imminent blood/destruction.
So what happens if call volume gets too high? And don't anyone tell me it couldn't happen. We see it happen even under the current system often enough.
If you split non-emergency calls to a different number, you can have the system deprioritize the 311 calls if there aren't enough operators. But if they are all coming in on the same number, an operator must talk to each caller to determine how important the call is. There is no longer any automated way to shift resources to true emergency calls when volume is too high. Emergency and non-emergency calls alike will go on hold.
9-1-1 has been an unmitigated success story for 40 years now. the reason is that people have been trained from childhood that it is the number to call when there is an emergency, and ONLY when there is an emergency. when certain cities, counties, etc start changing the rules and tell citizens it's what they should dial for every little thing, well, you are asking for disaster. besides the concerns expressed by others, when there isn't a ubiquitous and universal message across the country for how to reach police, fire, and ems correctly people will be confused and lose faith in the system(s) as a whole. This will potentially cause them to delay or completely abandon use of the 9-1-1 system, which can only lead to tragedy. seconds count when you are dealing with emergency communications, so any changes effecting public perception or awareness of the 9-1-1 system should not be put into place by this, or any, city.
Fist of all I'm a little insulted that the premise of this switch is that the general populace is too stupid to determine what is and isn't an emergency.
Secondly, a lot of us have had it ingrained in us since were small children that 911 is for emergencies only. I think this will deter a lot of people from calling the police for quality of life-type crimes that they previously would have called 311 for, and I'm not sure this is by accident. This may be an effective and calculated effort by the DC gov to reduce the total number of calls for service they have to respond to & in a few months will be able to say "look, crime is down!" when in fact it'll just be the number of reported crimes that are down.
Why not put the city wide call center on another X-1-1 number like 211 or 511 or 611 or 711 or 811?
As for the call volume skeptics, with the former operators handling both 911 and 311 calls, the integration to a single number shouldn't affect this one bit... same number of calls (Old 311 + Old 911 = New 911 call volume), same number of operators... The real question is, if I still dial 311 by mistake for the police or something, are the new 311 operators gonna know how to deal with that effectively??
jtowns... most other N-1-1 numbers already have designated purposes. some, but not must, communities have implemented these in a standardized fashion thanks to the efforts of various non-profit organizations and government entities. allowing municipalities to designate whatever service they want on whatever N-1-1 they choose would only lead to more confusion and de-nationalize a system that people have worked very hard to create uniformity in.
sorry for going hog wild on this topic, but since i am in the industry i feel compelled to weigh in... anyway, abridged food for thought from an email i received from a 9-1-1 call taker: "If you have 15 call takers with 30 calls coming in, there is no way to differentiate between incoming emergency calls and incoming non emergency calls, so priority calls will have to wait in queue behind non emergency calls until the prior calls are processed and asked to wait. Hopefully, maximum time per call is 10 seconds to decide whether they have an emergency or non emergency and placed on hold to answer the next call. Do you want your mother, father, son or daughter to wait behind someone who chooses to call to complain about someone blocking their driveway while someone has a possible burglary in progress?"
FCC regulates the use of other x11 numbers. In some communities 211 calls the local United Way chapter. DC government could designate either one of these or a standard 7 digit phone number for non-emergency police service, but again, it seems to me that the city gov thinks we're too dumb to know what is and isn't an emergency.