Calls to 911 in Ottawa up almost 10 per cent in 2022

File photo. (Oleg Magni / Pexels)

A new report for the city of Ottawa's Emergency Preparedness and Protective Services Committee shows that call volumes to 911 jumped almost 10 per cent in 2022 compared to the year before.

According to the report, there were 348,567 calls to 911 in 2022, compared to 317,766 in 2021.

It marks a trend of increasing 911 calls since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Emergency calls dropped by 6.3 per cent in 2020 compared to 2019.

However, the report states that 911 call takers are taking longer to reply. The contract between the city of Ottawa and the Ottawa Police Services Board requires that 97 per cent of all calls be answered within six seconds of the call being received, but in 2021, only 86 per cent of calls were answered within six seconds, and in 2022, that fell to 81 per cent.

"The City has been working with the Ottawa Police Service to assess the rationale behind the decrease in service standard. For example, call volume statistics are trending upwards again (post-COVID 2020 numbers), and in some cases, the nature of the call may require a longer discussion between the caller and the 9-1-1 operator," the report says.

The report adds that upgrades in 2021 to next generation 911 systems resulted in some unspecified data integrity issues. The next generation 911 system must be implemented nationally by March 4, 2025 to eventually allow for communication that includes text messages, photos and videos and would make it easier for 911 to know where a call is coming from.

"The Ottawa Police Service is ensuring that it continues to focus on resolving these data issues so that the performance metric related to the minimum standard for answering calls, can be fully validated," the report states.

The report says that in 2022, there was an average of 955 calls to 911 every day, up from 871 in 2021. Sixty-three per cent of 911 calls were for Ottawa police, 31 per cent were for paramedics, 2.8 per cent were for fires and 3.2 per cent were for other services, such as the OPP or RCMP or were meant for emergency services in Quebec.

Calls for police in 2022 were down compared to 2021, but calls for paramedics, fire services, and other services were up slightly.

In 2022, 80 per cent of 911 calls came from mobile phones, compared to 6.7 per cent from residential landlines. The shift from landline to mobile has been steady. In 2018, 10 per cent of 911 calls were from landlines and 73 per cent were from cell phones. Other 911 calls come from sources including commercial single line and push button, public pay phone, Centrex, and multi-party line (commercial and residential) phones.

The Emergency Preparedness and Protective Services Committee meets May 18.