Portland’s Bureau of Emergency Communications will begin testing an automated-operator service that uses artificial intelligence to direct non-emergency calls. The AI trial, which begins Monday, is part of an effort to reduce wait times for 911 calls that often stretch well beyond national standards.
The Versaterm Case Service Reporting system at first will be used “for a couple hours a day” to identify calls that should be redirected from the bureau’s non-emergency line – 503-823-3333 – to the separately managed 311 system, bureau director Bob Cozzie told city commissioners last Wednesday.
A recent city-commissioned report found that many Portland-area residents are confused about whether they should call the BoEC’s non-emergency line or 311 when they don’t believe an immediate response from first responders is necessary.
Based out of the city’s chief administrative officer’s office, 311 operators provide callers with information on city and government services like housing and transportation. BoEC’s non-emergency line, on the other hand, is intended for incidences that are not immediately time-sensitive but a police or fire-bureau response may be needed, Cozzie said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tuesday.
The Emergency Communications bureau also takes emergency 911 calls.
Cozzie said calls to the bureau have been steadily increasing for more than a decade, with a total increase of 28% since 2011.
The bureau received more than a million calls in 2022, 32% of which came through the non-emergency and administrative lines, according to the report. The report estimates that redirecting appropriate calls to the 311 line, which was established in 2019, could reduce the bureau’s call volume by 180,000 per year, or about 17%.
The emergency dispatch system’s high call load, mixed with staffing challenges since the coronavirus pandemic, has led to significantly increased wait times in recent years. Only 42% of calls last month were answered in the first 20 seconds, well below the National Emergency Number Association standard of 95%, according to bureau data.
Cozzie said that to meet the industry standard the bureau would need a staff of 147 call-takers and dispatchers. The bureau currently has 90, down from 98 in January 2020.
“What we used to do was provide a lot of the same information that 311 provides,” Cozzie told commissioners. “Now we’re not having to do that, so that has simplified things. The problem is, we’re still getting those calls on the non-emergency number.”
The AI-driven automated operator should relieve some of the burden, but ultimately confusion over which non-emergency line to call needs to be addressed by a public-education campaign, the report states.
The bureau will use the automated system for a limited period every day at the start of the trial. If the system is working as planned, use of the AI operator will be steadily increased until it’s taking 100% of non-emergency calls– probably in July, Cozzie said. Data will be collected during each call and reviewed every day to identify shortcomings or issues with the system.
Callers to the non-emergency line during the trial hours will be greeted by a human-sounding automated operator that will ask questions to determine whether the call should be taken up by a human bureau operator or redirected to the 311 system, Cozzie said. In some instances, the AI operator may attempt to address the caller’s request on its own by directing the person to online resources, such as the Portland Police Bureau’s reporting form. The system also can text information and links to callers.
At any point, callers can ask to speak with a human being, and the system will forward them to one of the bureau’s call takers, Cozzie said.
The emergency communications bureau is not considering using the automated system for 911 calls, according to spokesperson Jaymee Cuti.
“Our primary mission is processing emergency calls,” Cuti said. “In an emergency, a caller needs to speak with a human being.”
Cozzie, the bureau director, said he hopes that eventually the bureau’s non-emergency line can be eliminated, leaving 311 and 911 as the sole lines for Portlanders needing information, city services or first responders. The AI-driven automated operator could become the main point of contact on the 311 line, Cozzie said.
“I would like it to be as simple as possible for our community, where if they have an emergency, they call 911,” Cozzie said. “They call 311 for anything else, and 311 then ultimately would be able to point them in the right direction, even if it’s a non-emergency call that needs a dispatch from our 911 center.”
Mike Myers, Portland’s community safety transition director, told city commissioners last week that many major cities in the United States, including San Francisco and Seattle, use 311 as their line for at least some non-emergency services, and he recommended Portland do the same.
The hitch: most of the 311 call centers in other cities are staffed 24/7, while Portland’s fledgling program is only available from 7 a.m.-8 p.m, Monday through Friday. PDX 311 program manager Michelle Kunec-North told commissioners that they will begin weekend hours on July 1.
“Once 311 is fully operational 24/7,” Cozzie said, “that’s when I think we can really make that push for 911 for emergencies, 311 for everything else.”
— Nick Gibson; ngibson@oregonian.com; 971-393-8259; @newsynicholas
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