Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region
LCQ7: 999 Emergency Hotline
Question:
The Operations Wing of the Police Force provides a prompt and efficient 24-hour service to 999 callers, striving to answer all 999 calls within nine seconds and to respond to all genuine emergency calls within the established time limit. The average response time is nine minutes for Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon area, and 15 minutes for the New Territories. Response time is measured from the moment the Regional Command and Control Centre’s 999 console receives the call to the arrival of police officers at the scene. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) in the past three years, (i) of the respective annual numbers of calls received by the 999 hotline, the number of those calls which were genuine emergency calls, and the average waiting time for calls to be answered; (ii) of the percentage of calls which met the service standard of being answered within nine seconds; (iii) of the respective average response times for the New Territories, Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon area, and whether these met the service standards for those areas;
(2) (i) whether the 999 hotline has compiled statistics categorising the languages used by callers (including Cantonese, Putonghua, English and other languages); if so, of the relevant figures for the past three years; (ii) of the current mechanism for handling calls made in languages other than Cantonese, Putonghua and English; (iii) whether the Government will study the introduction of AI technologies, such as voice recognition and real-time translation systems, to the 999 hotline to enhance the efficiency of handling requests for assistance made in different languages; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; and
(3) (i) of the current staffing establishment of Police Communications Officers and the average daily number on duty; (ii) of the types of training provided to Police Communications Officers to ensure that they have sufficient judgement to determine whether a call for assistance is urgent and the nature of the case, so that each case is handled properly; (iii) whether the authorities have plans to continuously improve the quality and efficiency of handling requests for assistance; if so, the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
There are three Police Regional Command and Control Centres (RCCC) in Hong Kong, namely Hong Kong Island RCCC, Kowloon RCCC and New Territories RCCC. A 999 Emergency Call Centre is set up in each RCCC to answer the public’s calls for assistance on a 24-hour basis. Police officers are also deployed from District/Divisional Consoles to handle cases of various nature, with a view to providing efficient and effective services to persons seeking assistance.
The reply to the Member’s question is as follows:
(1) The figures relevant to 999 emergency call services in the past three years are as follows:
| (number of emergency calls)(81 659)(82 382)(80 568) To ensure appropriate allocation of resources for each call for assistance, the Police classify incoming calls based on the content of the cases. In general, incoming calls classified as “emergency calls” involve incidents such as “assault”, “arson”, “burglary”, “robbery”, “fire”, “person drowning” and “bomb discovery”, etc. The Police strive to respond to incoming emergency calls within the specified time limit under the performance pledge, which is nine minutes for Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, and 15 minutes for the New Territories. Response time is calculated from the moment the RCCC’s 999 console receives the call to the arrival of police officers at the scene. The percentages of response time meeting the performance pledge over the past three years are as follows:
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