Help On The Line
Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Ashley Roe
On Aug. 1, 2007, at 6:05 p.m., hordes of Minneapolis motorists traveling over the 1,907-ft. I-35W bridge found themselves in a living nightmare as the main spans of the bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River and its outer banks. Approximately 100 cars and their passengers and 18 construction workers plummeted into the river and onto the banks, leaving 13 people dead and about 100 more injured.
City and state leaders declared a state of emergency, as mutual aid arrived from a multitude of civilians, hospitals, volunteers and agencies in the seven-county metropolitan area. Calls to the Minneapolis 9-1-1 center tripled that evening, according to John Dejung, Minneapolis 9-1-1/3-1-1 Center director, and the city got an unexpected chance to test the call-handling capability of its recently implemented 3-1-1 Center calling system in the midst of a disaster.
“The bridge collapse on Aug. 1 proved the 3-1-1 Center to be an invaluable aid in the response. The 3-1-1 Center fielded hundreds of calls from the media, well-wishers and those seeking to donate supplies or expertise, and family members seeking news on loved ones,” Dejung says. “Had the 3-1-1 Center not been in place, many dozens of those calls would have arrived in the 9-1-1 Center queue, slowing response to and coordination of the emergency.”
In January 2006, Minneapolis' Telecommunications and Network Services Division deployed a 3-1-1 calling system that provides its 380,000 citizens with faster access to non-emergency city and government services. Although the solution was primarily meant to streamline citizen-government communication — giving citizens a simple three-digit number to call for information — city officials soon found it would also succeed in enhancing 9-1-1 call effectiveness by reducing the number of non-emergency calls to 9-1-1.
According to Dejung, up to 60 percent of all 9-1-1 calls are considered “non-emergency.” These might include calls reporting suspicious activity, abandoned vehicles or graffiti.
“There was a problem of inappropriate calls going into the 9-1-1 Center, which caused the limited resources assigned to the center to be stretched to almost breaking,” he says. “This had the potential to delay service to callers with a real need for a quick emergency services response.”
Effectively directing non-emergency calls is a challenge for contact centers, according to Minneapolis city officials. Being able to locate correct contacts and resolve issues in a timely manner is significant and requires a more flexible and expandable telecommunications platform that is easier to manage. “3-1-1 was a huge initiative for us, and we needed to implement new, emerging technology for that solution to be successful,” says Connie Perila, manager of Telecommunications and Network Services, City of Minneapolis.
Transforming city communications
The City of Minneapolis has 5,500 employees and approximately 3,500 phones distributed among the downtown offices, precincts and public works locations. Its legacy communications network was purchased in 1989 with an expected shelf life of eight years. In pushing that life to 16 years, the city experienced increasing costs for maintenance and service of antiquated equipment.
To carry out the 3-1-1 solution, the city deployed HiPath 4000 and optiPoint IP telephones from Siemens Communications, Boca Raton, Fla., with help from local Siemens channel partner, Black Box Network Services, Lawrence, Pa. The systems feature intelligent routing to facilitate faster access to skilled resources with the goal of providing higher levels of service, greater first contact resolution and simplified application administration.
The products provide open-architecture solutions based on several key technology and business goals including:
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to allow employees to communicate and collaborate regardless of the device, network or IT environment they are using;
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to provide organizations more flexibility in moving to an open-architecture environment;
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to provide solutions that can be integrated into business processes; and
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to provide solutions that are intuitive and easy-to-use.
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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.
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