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Q&A

Text to 911 usage trends and promotion strategies

0:58:09

ยท

97 sec

Council Member Holden inquires about the usage and promotion of the Text to 911 service. CTO Fraser provides insights on its current usage and potential for increased awareness.

  • Fraser reports consistent usage of Text to 911 over the past couple of years
  • Discussion on the need for better advertising of the service, especially for domestic violence situations
  • Fraser mentions working closely with the deaf and hard of hearing community
  • Acknowledgment of the service's importance in various emergency situations, including for children and domestic abuse victims
Robert F. Holden
0:58:09
All right.
0:58:10
One can I ask one more?
0:58:11
On 911, are we getting more use out of that?
0:58:16
Because that was a big improvement, I think.
0:58:20
But I don't think we advertise it enough.
0:58:22
So have you seen an increased improvement on Text and 911 usage?
Matthew C. Fraser
0:58:28
So text and 911 usage has been consistent over the last couple of years.
0:58:34
We can get the historic usage trends to you so you can see how that's moving.
0:58:39
In terms of advertising campaigns and how we could get that out more, think we can take another look at that.
0:58:45
We've worked very closely with the deaf and hard of hearing community about making sure that they knew the services available and getting it out to their constituency.
0:58:53
But I think that, you know, there's always room for improvement and we can see how we can get better.
0:58:58
But before we go too far
Robert F. Holden
0:59:00
Can I just Not only for the hard of hearing impaired, but for domestic violence?
0:59:09
It's very important to push that, because many times you get on the phone to 911 and somebody, you know, is going to get hurt doing that.
0:59:19
Right?
Matthew C. Fraser
0:59:20
We've a lot a lot of good examples of how text to 911, whether it's a small kid hiding in the closet texting saying that something's happening and they don't know what's happening, or it's someone that's subject to domestic abuse.
0:59:36
Like, there are many good cases for texting 911, and and I think broader awareness of it only helps the city, and we can figure out how we can do that.
0:59:46
But one of the things that you mentioned around 311, and this gets back to something that council member Bacha had said earlier about leveraging AI, a lot of the chat assistants that exist are capable of understanding the context of an issue and bringing that forward into a service request.
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