A major system outage for Triple Zero Victoria (TZV) has left operators unable to use dispatch software for several hours overnight, forcing them to turn to pen and paper.
The main centre affected was the Burwood dispatch centre, which experienced a power outage affecting their computer-aided dispatch system (CAD). At around 12:30 am this morning, the system went down and remained down for hours.
Other triple-zero call centres in Williams Landing and Ballarat also experienced disruptions to their dispatch software, however, they did not lose power.
A TZV spokesperson was able to confirm this and clarify the issue with the system.
“Triple-0 calls from the community continued to be taken throughout a power issue that caused an unplanned outage of [the] computer-aided dispatch system (CAD) at 12:30 am,” they said.
“Our staff are highly trained in Victoria’s CAD backup procedures, which are consistent with all other Australian jurisdictions.”
The CAD system logs calls to triple zero, showing dispatchers the nearest available ambulances, fire rescue and police vehicles, connecting them with the person in need of that service. Dispatchers instead were forced to put these details in by hand.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan spoke this morning about the outage and praised triple zero staff and their extensive training for situations like this.
“The cause of the power failure is still being investigated,” she said. “I’ve not got any advice that there was any impact on the community.”
Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill said this made the job of call takers very difficult for several hours.
“They’re effectively blind, and when a job comes in they can’t see it, and they resort to a manual, paper-based system,” he said.
Last night’s outage comes after triple zero calls were affected all over the country last month due to an Optus network failure, resulting in the deaths of three people.
Victoria’s outage at this stage has not been linked to the same issue, however, what caused it is not yet known.
Photo: by Alfredo Molina is available here and used under a Creative Commons licence. The image has been cropped.
