Chicagoans reporting police non-emergencies or making requests for city services ranging from pothole filling to animal removal will call one number–311–under a phone revamping announced Monday by Mayor Richard Daley.
The idea is to take some of the load off the city’s 911 emergency system and, at the same time, eliminate the long list of numbers now in use for various municipal services, making it easier for residents to get help, officials said.
The upgrading, estimated to cost $4 million, will be phased in beginning this spring, with completion by fall.
The city’s new 911 center on the West Side received 3.7 million calls last year, but about 740,000 were non-emergency in nature, officials said. Most of them were transferred to the police non-emergency number or to the Mayor’s Office of Inquiry and Information for city services not related to police.
When heavy rains flooded basements on the West and Northwest Sides last Aug. 16, the city came under heavy criticism when 911 operators were unable to handle the crush of 23,000 calls that were received in a span of less than three hours.
The revamped system will help the city deal more effectively with heavy volumes, said Glen Funk, executive director of the Office of Emergency Communications. But he stopped short of a guarantee that all calls will be answered under any circumstance.
“No system in the world” is designed to handle 23,000 calls in three hours, he said.
Last year, 96 percent of all 911 calls were answered within 10 seconds, Funk said. The improvements announced Monday could allow the emergency center to improve on that statistic, he added.
The adoption of the 311 number “will relieve pressure on the 911 system,” Daley said, but “that’s not the main reason why we’re taking this step.”
The new number can be dialed instead of 312-746-6000, now used for police non-emergency calls; 312-744-4000, the citywide information number; 312-744-5000, for citywide service requests; 312-744-CAPS, for information on community policing; 312-744-KIDS, for information on youth programs; 312-744-CITY for “business express” assistance; 312-744-2222, for empowerment zone information; 312-744-1234, the Graffiti Hotline; 312-744-SORT, for blue bag recycling information; and 312-744-5828 for Human Services.
For the time being, however, the laundry list of numbers will continue to connect to the proper office, in part because 311 can be used only by people who are within the city limits when they call.
In the two-phased switchover, callers who dial 311 beginning at a date to be announced this spring will get a recording and asked to press an additional number to get to the right place. By fall, all calls will be answered by an operator who will make the proper connection.
A total of 124 staffers who now take calls at the Mayor’s Office of Inquiry and Information and at the non-emergency police number will be consolidated at one location under the plan. No layoffs are expected, Funk said.
Three other cities–Baltimore, San Jose and Dallas– have adopted a 311 number, though it is used essentially for police non-emergency calls, officials said.
By creating a 311 system that will handle all requests for service, “we clearly are leading the national effort,” Funk said.
In Baltimore, the first city to adopt 311 under a pilot program begun in October 1996, total calls have increased by 10 percent because of the convenience of the system, Funk said. But 911 calls have declined by 22 percent, he said.
