Victoria’s emergency Triple Zero computer and dispatch system was knocked offline for several hours early this morning, forcing call-takers and dispatchers to use pen and paper to co-ordinate emergency responses.
The outage, which began at 12.30am, was caused by a power issue at the Triple Zero Victoria facility, according to a spokesperson. While the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system has since been fully restored, it’s unclear what time it came back online.
A spokesperson confirmed that “usual back-up measures were enacted to minimise impact to the community” during the outage. “Our staff are highly trained in Victoria’s CAD back-up procedures, which are consistent with all other Australian jurisdictions,” the spokesperson said.
The cause of the power issue is under investigation.
Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said the outage caused major inefficiencies in the emergency response process.
Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill.
When the CAD system is down, dispatchers lose the ability to track the location of resources across the state.
“So if a job comes in for Preston, for example, they can see that there’s an ambulance two kilometres down the road. When that system crashes, they actually have to get on the radio and ask, ‘Are there any crews available for a job in Preston?’ They have to manually do all those things,” Hill said adding call-takers are then forced to manually write down all incident information and physically hand to a dispatcher to assign the case.
“It’s a very, very inefficient way of doing things, basically going back in time a couple of decades,” he said.
“Categorically, it makes it harder. And often the crews out there on the road don’t get the information that they need.”
Opposition spokesperson for emergency services Danny O’Brien called the system failure a “serious concern”, adding that the government must provide a clear explanation of what caused the incident.
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