Sharjah Police respond to emergencies within 6 minutes

Sharjah - Emergency response time increases by 23% as compared to last year, say authorities.

Afkar Ali Ahmed

Published: Sun 13 Dec 2020, 10:36 AM

Last updated: Sun 13 Dec 2020, 10:41 AM

The Sharjah Police have clocked an emergency response time of 6.3 minutes in 2020 (January to November) — a 23 per cent increase as compared to last year. With this, the force is on track to helping the UAE achieve the shortest response time to emergencies.

In some parts of Sharjah, the response time was lesser than five minutes.

Advertising

Brigadier Dr. Ahmed Saeed Al Naour, Director-General of Central Operations at the Sharjah Police, said: “Based on the objectives of the Ministry of Interior, which is paying special attention to safety and security, we are on the path to achieve the world's fastest emergency response time by next year.

"Plans are afoot to spread awareness about safety and security, adopt methodologies and applications to realise our cherished goal next year. We have evaluated the performance indicators and the best practices that have been applied to reduce response time.

"Our emergency response time till October exceeded by about 23 per cent, as compared to the corresponding period last year. Data showed that the response time was 6.3 minutes this year as compared to 8.3 minutes in 2019."

A major campaign has been launched to make residents aware about the importance of responding to emergency calls.

He added: “We’re working towards a calibrated plan to improve the mechanisms of operating rooms and develop projects that are tailored to global best practices.”

The deployment of 'Asnad' and 'Anjad' patrols across the emirate helped reduce the response to emergency calls.

Last year, Sharjah had clocked 96 per cent on the safety and security quotient.

A quick-response management system (MDT) complemented the software that is installed on iPads linked to the operation rooms.

The global positioning system (GPS)-enabled mechanism can generate all necessary information about a caller such as the place of emergency and movement of traffic at the site on a real-time basis. “It also displays details about the urgency of an incident. Such precisions have been key to an uptick in the efficiency quotient of response time to emergency calls,” the officer added.

Sharjah’s Khor Fakkan police station authorities were among the first to have installed a smart device to receive messages from operation rooms. They have also set up seven surveillance cameras on thoroughfares to monitor traffic violations.

afkarali@khaleejtimes.com