Introduction
The Municipality of Ray Nkonyeni in the KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa wanted to eliminate its inefficient paper crime reporting process. Hytera provided a digital Call Taking and Handling System, which has made it much easier for the police and other authorities to dispatch a response and process cases.
User
Ray Nkonyeni Municipal Government, South Africa
Market Segment
Public Safety
Project Time
2022
Product
Hytera Call Taking and Handling System，Avaya IPO500 Unified Communications Platform
The Background
Ray Nkonyeni Municipality is a newly established local municipality in the province of KwaZulu Natal in South Africa. It is the fifth most populous municipality in KwaZulu Natal province. Ray Nkonyeni is located on the southeastern shore of South Africa facing the Indian Ocean. The municipality is a well-developed tourist destination offering a mix of attractions including beaches, savannah populated by big game animals, and mountains.
The Challenge
Easy access to and traceback of crime reports
The law enforcement agencies in Ray Nkonyeni Municipality rely heavily on old-fashioned paper documents for the reporting and recording of crimes. Citizens intending to report a crime either have to come to the municipal government office in person or call the office via telephone to report a crime. The office clerks then record the crime information on paper documents.
This method of crime recording makes it slow to locate documents and hard to trace sources of information. The municipal government, therefore, wanted to upgrade to a digital crime reporting system to increase accuracy and make it faster and easier to find documents.
Unify the communications of firefighters, EMS, and police
The Municipality was struggling with dispatching firefighters, EMS, and police in a timely and efficient way, because each agency was on a different communication platform. Besides replacing the paper incident reporting, automated dispatching and call-taking is also a major objective of the upgrading.
The Solution
Hytera supplied and installed a Hytera Call Taking and Handling System (CTHS). The system is designed to facilitate a quick and accurate response to emergency calls, create incident sheets, assign incidents, and dispatch police forces, thereby significantly enhancing safety in the city. Using customized software developed by Hytera, the CTHS works in conjunction with an Avaya IP Office 500 system to meet Ray Nkonyeni’s specific needs.
The solution provides the customer with a completely paperless online crime reporting and handling system. It also provides a unified platform for the local citizens to report crimes, which makes it easier for the police to process and access crime reports. The new digital system guarantees efficient, safe, and convenient online crime reporting, crime information recording, historical cases tracking and management.
The system supports timeline-based tracking and recording of the whole process, including incident status changes, actions performed, and voice calls. It also allows call handlers to play voice recordings online. Supervisors can monitor call takers and interrupt outgoing calls. The system also provides call and incident statistics for operation analysis.
Hytera’s solution supports multi-site deployment. The Avaya IPO500 platform is installed in the existing server room of the fire department, while the Hytera Call Taking and Handling System is based in the municipal government office. This protects the customer's existing infrastructure investment, and at the same time satisfies the customers’ customized needs to integrate the client’s infrastructure into the new system.
The Benefits
Easier Crime Reporting for Local Communities
Hytera CTHS solution provides the customer with a unified digital crime reporting system, enabling citizens to report online
More Efficient Call Handling
The call-taking process is now streamlined and the incident management software can cope with multiple alarms coming in for firefighters, EMS, and police all on one platform. It also reduces dropped or missed calls, as the system can handle more incoming calls at the same time. The incident details are populated automatically into the digital system, which eliminates the paper trail to a great extent. The system can also automatically merge similar or duplicate calls, saving a lot of time in matching copy by copy.
Faster Dispatch
The system allows dispatchers to locate and ascertain within seconds which first responder unit is closest and best able to respond to an incident. Dispatching time has been cut from between 10-15 minutes to less than two minutes.
Faster Processing of Crime Cases
The digital system speeds up the case-handling process for faster and more efficient crime resolution.
Easy Access to Documents and Reports
The digital recording system makes it easier to track relevant calls and crime reports, simplifying the whole process.
Saving Resources and Eco-friendly
The paperless office system saves resources and helps to protect the environment.
Reduced Costs
The new Hytera digital system is helping Ray Nkonyeni municipality save hundreds of thousands of rand annually.
We are very happy to use the Hytera Smart Call Taking and Handling System. It really helps us to improve the efficiency of working internally and dealing with all the incidents from the Municipality.
—— Mr. Selwyn Naidoo, Chief Manager of Fire, Rescue & Disaster Department of Ray Nkonyeni Municipality