Report shows how Austin compares to other cities when facing higher volumes of 911 calls
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A City Auditor's Office special report investigated how the City of Austin's 911 call taking center handles a high volume of 911 calls compared to other U.S. cities. The report was provided to KXAN by a source. It has not been publicly released.
The report details the volume of 911 calls the Austin Police Department receives, compares Austin's strategies for high volumes of calls to other cities and addressed the question of whether APD and the city should change the way they approach responding to high volumes of calls.
The report was in response to a request from Austin City Council members Alison Alter and Vanessa Fuentes.
According to the report, APD does not have a defined threshold for what is considered a high volume of 911 calls nor does it have different procedures for responding to high volumes of calls.
A sample of call volumes was taken from October 2021 to September 2023. Daily call volumes ranged from 1,551 to 4,344 calls. The average was 2,447 calls per day. The report noted, however, APD call volumes generally increased in 2023.
The objective of the report was to "answer the following questions about 911 call operations during high call volume events":
- How often does Austin’s 911 operations experience bulk arrival events or high demand?
- What actions does Austin currently have in place to respond to bulk arrival events to meet high demand?
- What actions do other cities and emergency communication centers use to scale operations and adjust capacity to meet high demand?
- How do bulk arrival or high-demand events impact wait times for callers?
How often does Austin's 911 operations experience bulk arrival events or high demand?
APD does not currently track the number of high demand events and it doesn't have a defined threshold for "high demand." The report noted that the relative busyness of the 911 call center depends on the number of calls and the number of call takers on shift, and call volumes can fluctuate by hour and day.
The audit found however that APD receives call volumes within a “normal” range from 1,772 to 3,122 daily calls most of the time.
In the sample of calls from October 2021 to September 2023, 30 days out of 729 days (about 4%) were above the normal range.
The report noted that some of the high-volume days were predictable, like the New Year's holiday. Other significant spikes were during the February 2023 winter storm, April 20, 2023, and June 17, 2023. It is worth noting that severe weather hit Central Texas on April 20, and Austin-Travis County EMS crews responded to multiple water rescues, mostly in north Austin, after rapid, heavy rain created flash floods.
What actions does Austin currently have in place to respond to bulk arrival events to meet high demand?
According to the report, APD’s call-taking and dispatch process is the same regardless of the volume of calls received.
The report stated that calls are processed in the order they come in, regardless of call volume. APD call takers also call back each person who dialed 911 but hung up before speaking with a call taker.
APD also schedules extra call-taking staff for days or events when they anticipate higher call volumes.
At the time of this special report request, APD had 104 call takers and 75 dispatchers budgeted. Since then, APD has had significant call center vacancies. The department's past standards called for a minimum of 14 employees on duty for call taking, which were lowered a minimum of six to "reduce overtime and staff burnout," according to the report.
However, APD adds additional staff including teletype operators and non-emergency call takers to the base number of call takers so they have sufficient staffing to provide adequate breaks, resulting in a range of 12 to 19 staff required per two-hour shift. The report said shifts are now staffed with between 22 and 25 call takers depending on the time of day.
What actions do other cities and emergency communication centers use to scale operations and adjust capacity to meet high demand?
The report compared Austin's 911 operations to Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth, Denver and Portland. Most of these cities also did not have a defined threshold for high demand, Dallas was an exception. Dallas defines high demand as 200 or more calls in a 15-minute period.
According to the report, Austin’s call center has some of the greatest variability in the number of calls per call taker compared to the other cities. When six call takers are assigned to a shift, Austin has the second highest number of calls per call taker, 408 calls per call taker, second only to Denver’s 445 calls per call taker. When Austin’s call center has 14 call takers on a shift, Austin still has the second-highest number of calls per call taker, but is closer to the majority of comparable cities the report looked at.
The report noted that each of these cities had at least one strategy to address high-demand call volumes, and all use overtime or reassign staff to take calls when demand is high. Almost half of the cities (43%) instruct call takers to shorten their standard line of questioning.
The report also found that some cities are starting to use artificial intelligence to address high demand. Austin already uses AI for non-emergency calls as part of its iReport system.
According to the report, Denver is looking at using AI to geotag an area with a known incident and create a voice message for any 911 callers within the vicinity to let them know police are aware of the issue, which could reduce the number of calls about the same incident handled by call takers.
How do bulk arrival or high demand events impact wait times for callers?
According to the report, people generally wait longer for their calls to be answered as call volumes increase, but an increase in call volume did not always result in an increase in wait times. Lower call volumes did not ensure faster answering times.
The percentage of calls answered in 15 seconds or less dropped from a high of over 93% in November 2021 to an average of about 77% in 2022 and 2023.
The report notes that longer wait times mean callers wait longer to reach a call taker, which adds time to the initial part of the dispatch process, and callers on hold may hang up completely or hang up and redial 911 to try to get ahead in the queue.
According to the report, as call volumes increased, so did the percentage of calls where people hung up before their call was answered.
The city auditor's office looked at the four days from the time period of the report with the highest volume of calls and found that call volumes were not uniformly high throughout the day, call volume and answering times were not completely correlated, and wait times periodically spiked on all four days, sometimes without a corresponding increase in call volume.