Outage forced system offline for hours overnight
Victoria’s emergency Triple Zero computer and dispatch system were disabled for several hours early Wednesday morning, forcing call takers and dispatchers to use pen and paper to coordinate emergency responses.
A spokesman said the outage, which started at 12.30am, was caused by a power issue at the Triple Zero Victoria facility. Although the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system has since been fully restored, the exact date when it came back online remains unclear.
Triple Zero Victoria suffered a software outage overnight.
A spokesperson confirmed that “usual back-up measures were taken to minimize the impact on the community” during the outage.
“Our staff are highly trained in Victoria’s CAD backup procedures, which are consistent with all other Australian jurisdictions,” the spokesperson said.
The cause of the power issue is currently under investigation.
Victoria Ambulance Association secretary Danny Hill said the outage had caused major inefficiencies in the emergency response process.
Victoria Ambulance Association secretary Danny Hill.
When the CAD system goes down, dispatchers lose the ability to track the location of resources across the state.
“So when a job comes in for Preston, for example, they can see there’s an ambulance two kilometers down the road. When that system goes down, they actually have to get on the radio and ask: ‘Is there any crew available for the job in Preston?’ They have to do all this manually,” Hill said.
