Dubai Police drastically slash emergency response time

Dubai: Dubai Police have drastically slashed their response time for emergencies, from the previous 3.37 minutes to a lightning-quick 1.55 minutes, during the third quarter of this year.

The 999 emergency number received about 1.3 million calls during the same period.

Major General Mohamed Saif Al Zafein, Assistant Commander-in-Chief for Operations Affairs, praised officers at the Command and Control Centre for their swift response to emergencies.

“Dubai Police patrols response time to reach emergency scenes was 1.55 minutes, while it was 3.37 minutes last year,” said Maj Gen Al Zafein during the an Operations Department performance appraisal meeting.

10-second window

Dubai Police said that during the third quarter of 2021, Dubai Police’s emergency hotline 999 received 1,341,612 calls, of which 99.8 per cent of the calls were answered within 10 seconds, compared to 1,222,608 calls received during the same period last year.

According to official figures revealed during the meeting, the total number of calls to the non-emergency line 901 reached 166,837 calls during the third quarter this year – of those 94 per cent were answered within 20 seconds.

He urged the public to understand the difference between 901 and the emergency hotline 999 and be more mindful of their calls to the hotline.