Rochester upgrades 311

Rochester 311

Officials in Rochester, N.Y., are upgrading their 311 call center with a Motorola enterprise management system to better handle the hundreds of thousands of nonemergency calls that go to the police department, company officials announced this week.

Motorola's Customer Service Request System is designed specifically to help manage the intake, routing and resolution of citizens' requests for information and services. It allows officials to process the requests electronically, from initiation to resolution.

"Call takers will be able to do much of their work electronically, thereby streamlining response times and service request follow-ups, as well as increase our ability to measure how we meet the needs of the community," Lt. Michael Kozak, chief information officer for the Rochester Police Department, said in a statement.

Typically, a 311 call can address a range of issues, including property damage or vandalism, animal nuisance problems and illegally parked vehicles, according to the Rochester 311 site.

Cities nationwide have implemented 311 systems to ease the load on local 911 call centers, including Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas. The Justice Department's Community Oriented Policing Services program provided initial funding for many of them.