Politics & Government

City's 911 System to Get a Big Change: Report

Response times will now be measured from the moment a call is received, New York Post writes.

This article was written by Matthew Hampton.

The city's emergency call system, set to be the focus of a City Council hearing Friday morning, is about to undergo another major change, according to the New York Post.

The paper reported that the city will soon start measuring response times from the moment calls are received, rather than from the moment help is dispatched.

Dispatchers will also receive new training in an attempt to streamline information gathering — with particular respect to determining a caller's location.

The FDNY has criticized the 911 system in the past, saying that some parts of the city — particularly areas of Queens — have confusing addresses that can result in help being dispatched in the wrong direction. 

The call system has been a source of frustration for several years, in particular among the city's firefighters unions, since the NYPD started handling all emergency calls, the paper wrote.

Friday morning's hearing is in response to a growing chorus of city officials and residents who are disappointed in the way the E911 system has operated in recent weeks, crashing multiple times. The death of a child in an auto accident June 4 has sent the administration into a defensive frenzy.

City Comptroller John Liu announced an audit of the system earlier this month.

“The Mayor’s response to the E911 problems, blaming the crashes on unspecified computer bugs, is cavalier to the extreme,” Liu said at the time. “Lives are at stake. New Yorkers need an E911 system that works, and they need it now.”

The hearing was scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. Friday morning.


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