Flooded with hoax calls warning of bombs being planted in various areas in the city, the Mumbai Police have been led on numerous wild goose chases on a daily basis. However, in a silver lining to the cloud, the police now claim to have brought down their average response time to distress calls on their emergency helpline number — 100 — to an unprecedented low of seven minutes — a marked improvement from the average of eight minutes barely six months ago.

According to the police, who hope to ultimately cut down their response time to five minutes, an increase in manpower and patrolling vehicles along with the use of GIS and GPS technology are the primary reasons for the current achievement.

“The average response time of the Mumbai Police has come down from between 7 and 8 minutes to between 6 and 7 minutes. This drop in the response time has been achieved over a period of about six months. In any major metropolitan city, the average response time is usually between 10 to 12 minutes. We have cut down this time by several minutes,” said Joint Commissioner of Police, Anti-Terrorism Squad, Hemant Karkare, who was previously posted as JCP Administration.

On July 28 last year, Newsline had reported that the police’s average response time had been slashed from 17-18 minutes to 8.5 minutes.

“This is a continuing process, and our ultimate aim is to cut down our response time to 5 minutes or less. As it stands, our response time is comparable to that of the best police forces in the world,” said Joint Commissioner of Police, Law and Order, K L Prasad.

As of now, citizens make distress calls on the multiple lines of the emergency number ‘100’. The automated voice response system attends the call and connects the caller to the Mumbai Police Control Room. The policeman who attends the call takes down details such as the caller’s name, location and the nature of distress. Making use of GPS technology, he then checks a screen displaying the current locations of all patrolling vehicles, and dispatches the nearest vehicle to the spot concerned.

“The use of GIS and GPS systems have enabled us to cut down our response time recently. These systems save the time that would otherwise have been used up in just trying to locate the nearest possible police vehicle,” said Prasad.