RESERVING 911 FOR EMERGENCIES HELP LINES MAY BE REDUCING CALL VOLUME.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Three new telephone help lines for residents and motorists may be achieving one of the primary goals officials had in mind: freeing up 911 lines for true emergencies.

With many callers to 911 ending up on hold because of the high volume of calls, local governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in recent years launched a smorgasbord of alternate lines such as 211, 311 and #399.

While officials said there are no definitive data showing the lines are contributing to a drop in 911 calls, the numbers are encouraging.

The city of Los Angeles launched its 311 local government services line in November 2002, offering to help refer residents to appropriate city agencies for help with such things as graffiti removal and bulk-item pickup.

Officials said the number of calls to 311 jumped more than 60 percent to 599,608 last fiscal year, while the number of 911 calls fell 5 percent to 1.76 million last year.

``We are taking credit for some of that reduction,'' said David Dizon, director of the city's 311 system. ``(Still), it would be very hard for us to actually make a firm, definitive calculation on that because the LAPD has said during that period of time there was a reduction in crime so that would also attribute to a reduction in calls to 911.''

The California Highway Patrol, whose communications center in Los Angeles handles 911 calls from cell phones, saw its 911 calls drop 15 percent to 1.07 million in the first 10 months of this year.

CHP spokeswoman Rebecca Estrada said the drop was mainly because many police departments also began to accept 911 cellular calls. But she said officials are examining whether the MTA's #399 roadside assistance line helped reduce nonemergency cellular calls to 911.

The #399 number, launched by the MTA on July 1, allows motorists traveling Los Angeles County freeways to use their cell phones to get roadside assistance from their auto clubs or the Metro Freeway Service Patrol.

``At this point, we are still evaluating the whole #399 impact on 911 cellular routing,'' Estrada said. ``We don't have numbers to stipulate whether it's making a difference or not.''

Also in July, county government launched its 211 line to help connect people with 28,000 health and social service programs and help reduce nonemergency calls to 911.

In July 2004, INFO LINE Los Angeles - which changed its name to 211 LA County in July - received 22,806 calls. During its launch in July, the service received 32,195 calls; last month, it received 31,027.

``It will pick up again this month due to holiday calling,'' said Maribel Marin, executive director of 211 LA County. ``There will be food banks, soup kitchens and those kinds of special programs they have for the holidays.

``We are dealing with people in crisis, people who are homeless, about to become homeless, who are unemployed and people who have had some tragedy in the family or some dire crisis.''

Thomas Prigatano, 911 coordinator and a public safety dispatch supervisor at the CHP's Los Angeles Communications Center, said he believes the county's 211 line has reduced some calls to 911.

``If I was driving down the road with an incorrigible child and wanted the number to social services and couldn't find it in the directory because I'm so upset, at one time I would call 911,'' Prigatano said. ``211 mitigates that by having all those social services operators.''

Troy Anderson, [phone]

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com