1-1-1
Encyclopedia
111 is the emergency telephone number
in New Zealand
. It was first implemented in Masterton
and Carterton
on 29 September 1958, and was progressively rolled out nationwide with the last exchanges converting in 1988. In 2008, 111 celebrated fifty years of service.
, one would simply pick up the telephone and ask the answering operator for the police
, ambulance
, or fire service by name. However, the problem was on manual exchanges the calls were answered first-come-first-served, which meant on busy exchanges, emergency calls could be delayed. For automatic exchanges, one would need to look up the local police, ambulance or fire service’s telephone number in the telephone directory, know the number off by heart, or dial the toll operator and asking them to place the call. The problem was that the numbers were different for each exchange, and again, there was no way to tell emergency calls apart from regular calls. Auckland
, for example, had 40 telephone exchanges, and the telephone directory had 500 pages to search through to find the right number.
Following the 1947 Ballantynes fire
in Christchurch
, fire officer Arthur Varley was recruited from the UK to bring about the reform of the New Zealand Fire Service. Familiar with Britain’s 999
system, he campaigned for there to be a universal emergency telephone number across the country. In mid-1957, a committee was set up to set up a common emergency number across New Zealand, consisting of the Post and Telegraph Department
, the Police
, the Health Department, and the Fire Service
. In early 1958, the Postmaster
General approved the provision of the service using the number 111.
111 was specifically chosen to comply with the positioning of Britain's 999. With pulse dialling, New Zealand telephones pulse in reverse to the UK - dialling 0 sent ten pulses, 1 sent nine, 2 sent eight, 3 sent seven, etc. in New Zealand, while in the UK, dialling 1 sent one pulse, 2 sent two, etc. In the early years of 111, the telephone equipment was based on British Post Office equipment, except for this unusual orientation. Therefore dialling 111 on a New Zealand telephone sent three sets of nine pulses to the exchange, exactly the same as UK's 999.
The telephone exchange in Masterton
was replaced in 1956, and was the first exchange to have the technology installed for the 111 service. Hence Masterton and nearby Carterton
were the first towns in the country to get the new service.
The 111 service began on 29 September 1958 in the two towns. When a subscriber dialled 111 at either exchange, the call was routed by the automatic exchange onto one of three dedicated lines to the toll switchboard
at the Masterton exchange (although the exchange connected calls automatically, long-distance (toll) calls still had to be connected manually through an operator
). A red light glowed on the switchboard panel, and another red light would glow on top of the switchboard. Two hooters also sounded, one in the exchange and the other in the building passage. The first operator to plug in to the line took the call, and a supervisor would plug into the line to help if the situation became difficult.
Dedicated lines connected the toll switchboard to the Masterton police station, fire brigade, and the hospital, where they were connected to a special red telephone. The line connected to the fire station, when it rang, also sounded the station alarm bells. A similar arrangement was employed at the police station, while at the hospital the call went to the local switchboard where it was identified by a red light and a distinctive bell.
Among the first 111 calls was a call for an ambulance after an accident at a sawmill
, and call to the fire service after a rubbish tip fire in Carterton. The first hoax call also occurred on the first day – a caller dialed 111 to ask for the address for a Carterton hotel.
The dates of installation in some major towns and cities were:-
answering of emergency telephone service came under sustained scrutiny for systemic problems. On May 11, 2005, a severely critical independent report into the Police Communications Centres was released. It expressed ongoing concerns for public safety, and identified inadequate management, poor leadership, inadequate training, understaffing, underutilised technology and a lack of customer focus as being underlying risks for systemic failures. The report made over 60 recommendations for improvement, including recommending a 15 to 20 year strategy to move away from using 111 as an emergency telephone number because of problems with misdialing due to the repeated digits.
Despite ambiguous reporting, these issues were never with the 111 service itself, and did not impact fire or ambulance services. The problems were restricted solely to the Police Communications Centres.
Upon dialling 111, the Telecom
operator will answer first: "111 emergency - Fire, Ambulance or Police?". The operator will then connect you to the relevant service. For situations requiring multiple services, the operator will put you through to the most urgently needed service (For example, in a car accident involving injuries, which requires both Ambulance and Police, the operator will put you through to Ambulance).
Apart from fire, ambulance, and police, 111 is the emergency number for civil defence, search and rescue
(part of the police), and gas leaks (part of the fire service).
On average, only 34 percent calls to 111 are real emergencies. After the first false call made in a month, a NZ$6 charge is incurred.
In the hours following the Christchurch Earthquake on February 22 2011, the 111 service was knocked out in the region for several hours due to the extreme infrastructure damage. People in need of assistance had to call the police, fire, ambulance and search and rescue services directly.
Other emergency numbers vary from area to area, or from service provider to service provider. These numbers can be found under the "Emergency Information" section on pages 2 and 3 of the local White Pages telephone directory
.
, this code cannot be used as an N11 number because of a conflict with the rotary alternative for star commands (11XX for *XX).
In South Korea
, 111 is a special telephone number for reporting spies, international crimes, terrorism, corporate espionage, employment fraud and forgeries, and other crimes that threaten national security. It is operated by National Intelligence Service.
In parts of the United Kingdom
, a trial started in August 2010 for a non-emergency medical assistance line, using the number 111.
Emergency telephone number
Many countries' public telephone networks have a single emergency telephone number, sometimes known as the universal emergency telephone number or occasionally the emergency services number, that allows a caller to contact local emergency services for assistance. The emergency telephone number may...
in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. It was first implemented in Masterton
Masterton
Masterton is a large town and local government district in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. It is the largest town in the Wairarapa, a region separated from Wellington by the Rimutaka ranges...
and Carterton
Carterton, New Zealand
Carterton is a small town in the Wellington Region of New Zealand and the seat of the Carterton District. It lies in a farming area of the Wairarapa in New Zealand's North Island. It is located southwest of Masterton and northeast of Wellington...
on 29 September 1958, and was progressively rolled out nationwide with the last exchanges converting in 1988. In 2008, 111 celebrated fifty years of service.
Introduction
Before the introduction of 111, access to emergency services was complicated. For the quarter of New Zealand’s then 414,000 telephone subscribers that were still on manual exchangesTelephone exchange
In the field of telecommunications, a telephone exchange or telephone switch is a system of electronic components that connects telephone calls...
, one would simply pick up the telephone and ask the answering operator for the police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
, ambulance
Ambulance
An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...
, or fire service by name. However, the problem was on manual exchanges the calls were answered first-come-first-served, which meant on busy exchanges, emergency calls could be delayed. For automatic exchanges, one would need to look up the local police, ambulance or fire service’s telephone number in the telephone directory, know the number off by heart, or dial the toll operator and asking them to place the call. The problem was that the numbers were different for each exchange, and again, there was no way to tell emergency calls apart from regular calls. Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, for example, had 40 telephone exchanges, and the telephone directory had 500 pages to search through to find the right number.
Following the 1947 Ballantynes fire
Ballantyne's store disaster
The Ballantyne's fire on 18 November 1947 remains the deadliest fire in New Zealand history. Forty one people died in the blaze in the Christchurch Central City; all were employees who found themselves trapped by the fire or were overcome by smoke while evacuating the store complex without a fire...
in Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...
, fire officer Arthur Varley was recruited from the UK to bring about the reform of the New Zealand Fire Service. Familiar with Britain’s 999
999 (emergency telephone number)
999 is an official emergency telephone number in a number of countries which allows the caller to contact emergency services for urgent assistance....
system, he campaigned for there to be a universal emergency telephone number across the country. In mid-1957, a committee was set up to set up a common emergency number across New Zealand, consisting of the Post and Telegraph Department
New Zealand Post Office
The New Zealand Post Office was a New Zealand government department.As a Government Department, the New Zealand Post Office or N.Z.P.O., previously the Post and Telegraph Department or P & T, had as the political head the Postmaster General who was a member of Cabinet, and, when it was a separate...
, the Police
New Zealand Police
The New Zealand Police is the national police force of New Zealand, responsible for enforcing criminal law, enhancing public safety, maintaining order and keeping the peace throughout New Zealand...
, the Health Department, and the Fire Service
New Zealand Fire Service
The New Zealand Fire Service is New Zealand's national fire fighting body. While its founding legislation, the Fire Service Act 1975, only provides for this role, the organisation has assumed responsibility for several other areas.-Strategic Direction:The New Zealand Fire Service has defined for...
. In early 1958, the Postmaster
Postmaster
A postmaster is the head of an individual post office. Postmistress is not used anymore in the United States, as the "master" component of the word refers to a person of authority and has no gender quality...
General approved the provision of the service using the number 111.
111 was specifically chosen to comply with the positioning of Britain's 999. With pulse dialling, New Zealand telephones pulse in reverse to the UK - dialling 0 sent ten pulses, 1 sent nine, 2 sent eight, 3 sent seven, etc. in New Zealand, while in the UK, dialling 1 sent one pulse, 2 sent two, etc. In the early years of 111, the telephone equipment was based on British Post Office equipment, except for this unusual orientation. Therefore dialling 111 on a New Zealand telephone sent three sets of nine pulses to the exchange, exactly the same as UK's 999.
The telephone exchange in Masterton
Masterton
Masterton is a large town and local government district in the Wellington Region of New Zealand. It is the largest town in the Wairarapa, a region separated from Wellington by the Rimutaka ranges...
was replaced in 1956, and was the first exchange to have the technology installed for the 111 service. Hence Masterton and nearby Carterton
Carterton, New Zealand
Carterton is a small town in the Wellington Region of New Zealand and the seat of the Carterton District. It lies in a farming area of the Wairarapa in New Zealand's North Island. It is located southwest of Masterton and northeast of Wellington...
were the first towns in the country to get the new service.
The 111 service began on 29 September 1958 in the two towns. When a subscriber dialled 111 at either exchange, the call was routed by the automatic exchange onto one of three dedicated lines to the toll switchboard
Telephone switchboard
A switchboard was a device used to connect a group of telephones manually to one another or to an outside connection, within and between telephone exchanges or private branch exchanges . The user was typically known as an operator...
at the Masterton exchange (although the exchange connected calls automatically, long-distance (toll) calls still had to be connected manually through an operator
Telephone operator
A telephone operator is either* a person who provides assistance to a telephone caller, usually in the placing of operator assisted telephone calls such as calls from a pay phone, collect calls , calls which are billed to a credit card, station-to-station and person-to-person calls, and certain...
). A red light glowed on the switchboard panel, and another red light would glow on top of the switchboard. Two hooters also sounded, one in the exchange and the other in the building passage. The first operator to plug in to the line took the call, and a supervisor would plug into the line to help if the situation became difficult.
Dedicated lines connected the toll switchboard to the Masterton police station, fire brigade, and the hospital, where they were connected to a special red telephone. The line connected to the fire station, when it rang, also sounded the station alarm bells. A similar arrangement was employed at the police station, while at the hospital the call went to the local switchboard where it was identified by a red light and a distinctive bell.
Among the first 111 calls was a call for an ambulance after an accident at a sawmill
Sawmill
A sawmill is a facility where logs are cut into boards.-Sawmill process:A sawmill's basic operation is much like those of hundreds of years ago; a log enters on one end and dimensional lumber exits on the other end....
, and call to the fire service after a rubbish tip fire in Carterton. The first hoax call also occurred on the first day – a caller dialed 111 to ask for the address for a Carterton hotel.
Expansion
After the introduction of 111 in Masterton and Carterton, the service soon expanded to most major towns and cities. By the mid-1980s all but a few rural exchanges had the service, and by 1988, 111 was available on every exchange in mainland New Zealand.The dates of installation in some major towns and cities were:-
| Auckland | 1968 |
| Christchurch | 1964 |
| Dunedin | 1966 |
| Gisborne | 1960 |
| Hamilton | 1960 |
| Invercargill | 1960 |
| Napier | 1960 |
| Nelson | 1960 |
| New Plymouth | 1961 |
| Palmerston North | 1961 |
| Timaru | 1960 |
| Wanganui | 1960 |
| Wellington | 1961 |
| Whangarei | 1962 |
Controversy
In New Zealand in 2004, the policeNew Zealand Police
The New Zealand Police is the national police force of New Zealand, responsible for enforcing criminal law, enhancing public safety, maintaining order and keeping the peace throughout New Zealand...
answering of emergency telephone service came under sustained scrutiny for systemic problems. On May 11, 2005, a severely critical independent report into the Police Communications Centres was released. It expressed ongoing concerns for public safety, and identified inadequate management, poor leadership, inadequate training, understaffing, underutilised technology and a lack of customer focus as being underlying risks for systemic failures. The report made over 60 recommendations for improvement, including recommending a 15 to 20 year strategy to move away from using 111 as an emergency telephone number because of problems with misdialing due to the repeated digits.
Despite ambiguous reporting, these issues were never with the 111 service itself, and did not impact fire or ambulance services. The problems were restricted solely to the Police Communications Centres.
Dialling 111
Any phone within New Zealand can dial 111, includes payphones/phoneboxes and mobiles/cellphones even when there is no money/credit on the phone.Upon dialling 111, the Telecom
Telecom New Zealand
Telecom New Zealand is a New Zealand-wide communications service provider , providing fixed line telephone services, a mobile network, an internet service provider , a major ICT provider to NZ businesses , and a wholesale network infrastructure provider to other NZ CSPs...
operator will answer first: "111 emergency - Fire, Ambulance or Police?". The operator will then connect you to the relevant service. For situations requiring multiple services, the operator will put you through to the most urgently needed service (For example, in a car accident involving injuries, which requires both Ambulance and Police, the operator will put you through to Ambulance).
Apart from fire, ambulance, and police, 111 is the emergency number for civil defence, search and rescue
Search and rescue
Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...
(part of the police), and gas leaks (part of the fire service).
On average, only 34 percent calls to 111 are real emergencies. After the first false call made in a month, a NZ$6 charge is incurred.
In the hours following the Christchurch Earthquake on February 22 2011, the 111 service was knocked out in the region for several hours due to the extreme infrastructure damage. People in need of assistance had to call the police, fire, ambulance and search and rescue services directly.
Other New Zealand emergency numbers
Other than 111, the following national emergency numbers are used for different services:-- *555 - traffic incidents (dialable from mobile phones only)
- 0800161610 - Deaf emergency fax (connects to police)
- 0800161616 - Deaf emergency textphone/TTY (connects to police)
- 0800764766 - Poisons and hazardous chemicals emergency
- 0800611116 - medical advice ("Healthline", run by Ministry of HealthNew Zealand Ministry of HealthThe Ministry of Health , formerly the Department of Health from 1903 to 1993, is a department of the New Zealand government. This is the channel through which the government channels its funding for health services, VOTE: Health.The ministry is overseen by the Minister of Health in the New Zealand...
) - 0800808400 - railway emergencies (ONTRACKOnTrackOnTrack was a regional rail line that operated in Syracuse, New York from 1994 to 2007. During its operation, Syracuse was the smallest city in the United States to have regional train service. The line ran from Colvin Street on the city's south side via Syracuse University and Armory Square to the...
)
Other emergency numbers vary from area to area, or from service provider to service provider. These numbers can be found under the "Emergency Information" section on pages 2 and 3 of the local White Pages telephone directory
Telephone directory
A telephone directory is a listing of telephone subscribers in a geographical area or subscribers to services provided by the organization that publishes the directory...
.
International usage of 111
In North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, this code cannot be used as an N11 number because of a conflict with the rotary alternative for star commands (11XX for *XX).
In South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, 111 is a special telephone number for reporting spies, international crimes, terrorism, corporate espionage, employment fraud and forgeries, and other crimes that threaten national security. It is operated by National Intelligence Service.
In parts of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, a trial started in August 2010 for a non-emergency medical assistance line, using the number 111.
See also
- 000000 emergencyTriple Zero is the primary national emergency number in Australia. The Emergency Call Service is operated by Telstra a condition of its telecommunications licence, and is intended only for use in life-threatening or time-critical emergencies...
Emergency phone number in Australia. - 1121-1-2112 is the principal emergency telephone number that can be dialed free of charge from any telephone or any mobile phone in order to reach emergency services in the European Union , its candidates for accession, members of the EEA agreement, as well as several other countries in the world...
Emergency phone number across the European UnionEuropean UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
and on GSM mobile networks across the world. - 1191-1-9119 is the emergency telephone number in parts of Asia and in Jamaica.- 119 in South Korea :119 is a direct-dial emergency number for firefighter and ambulance services operated by the National Emergency Management Agency. The caller's location is automatically traced once the call is connected,...
Emergency phone number in parts of East Asia. - 9119-1-19-1-1 is the emergency telephone number for the North American Numbering Plan .It is one of eight N11 codes.The use of this number is for emergency circumstances only, and to use it for any other purpose can be a crime.-History:In the earliest days of telephone technology, prior to the...
Emergency phone number in US and Canada. - 999999 (emergency telephone number)999 is an official emergency telephone number in a number of countries which allows the caller to contact emergency services for urgent assistance....
Emergency phone number in United Kingdom (to which 112 calls are routed), Poland and Ireland. Also an emergency number in several non-EU countries.
- Emergency telephoneEmergency telephoneAn emergency telephone is a phone specifically provided for making calls to emergency services and is most often found in a place of special danger or where it is likely that there will only be a need to make emergency calls....
- Emergency telephone numberEmergency telephone numberMany countries' public telephone networks have a single emergency telephone number, sometimes known as the universal emergency telephone number or occasionally the emergency services number, that allows a caller to contact local emergency services for assistance. The emergency telephone number may...
- In case of emergencyIn case of emergencyIn case of emergency is a programme that enables first responders, such as paramedics, firefighters, police officers, and Hospital personnel, to contact the phone owner's next of kin to obtain important medical/support information...
(ICE) entry in the mobile phone book.