Report to: General
Committee Report
Date: June 1, 2009
SUBJECT: 311 Call Routing
Agreement with the City of Toronto
PREPARED BY: Rhonda Bosch, Manager Contact
Centre ext. 2242
RECOMMENDATION:
1)
That the report entitled 311
Call Routing Agreement with the City of Toronto be received;
2)
That Council authorize the CAO
to execute the 311 Call Routing Agreement with the City of Toronto (Attachment 1) in a form satisfactory
to the Town Solicitor;
3)
And that staff be authorized
and directed to do all things necessary to give effect to this resolution.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Not Required
PURPOSE:
The purpose of
this report is to inform Council
of the impact to ten (10) Markham phone numbers as a result of the impending
implementation of 311 services in Toronto. The City of Toronto is also requesting the Town of Markham sign a 311
Routing Agreement.
BACKGROUND:
In November 2004, the
Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunication Commission confirmed the
assignment of 311 for use in Canada. 311 is a short easy to remember
single-point-of-contact phone number for non-emergency municipal government
services. Currently, there are many
municipalities in Canada
that provide 311 services, including: Calgary,
Ottawa, Halifax, Montreal, Gatineau, Sudbury, Halton, Windsor, Laval, Fort St. John (BC), Edmonton and Winnipeg.
There are other Canadian cities in the process of planning
implementation of 311 services within the year.
Locally, the City of Toronto
has confirmed plans for the launch of 311 services in June 2009.
Prior to the 311
number being activated by Bell
Canada
for the City of Toronto,
Bell Canada requires
the City of Toronto
to have signed agreements with neighbouring municipalities formalizing call
routing of phone numbers that do not align with municipal boundaries.
OPTIONS/ DISCUSSION:
Currently, the Town of
Markham has
five telephone wire centers that reside within the municipality to handle the telephone service for the locality. Within these wire
centers there are 207,185 phone numbers and only 55% of them belong to Markham residents. The other 45% of the phone numbers belong to
bordering municipalities, i.e. Richmond
Hill, Vaughan, Stouffville, Pickering or Toronto. Approximately 174 of the 207,185 phone numbers
residing within the Town of Markham’s
wire centers belong to the City of Toronto. As a result of these shared wire centers, the
174 residents’ phone numbers belonging to Toronto
citizens must be programmed by Bell
Canada
using postal codes to automatically route to the Toronto 311 Call Centre at a
cost payable by the City of Toronto. The Town of Markham will not incur any costs for
re-routing of the 174 phone numbers to the City of Toronto 311 service.
There is one wire center in the City of Toronto called Ernest
that contains 59,066 phone numbers and 10 of these numbers belong to Markham residents. The 10 residents in the Markham portion of this wire center that dial
311 will initially be directed to the Toronto 311 Centre. Bell
Canada
confirmed that the only way for the 10 Markham
phone numbers that are included in the Ernest Wire
Center to be routed
directly to the Markham Call Centre when they dial 311, is for the Town of Markham to activate their
own 311 Centre. At this time, the Town of Markham and the Region of York are not ready
to complete the application process for the 311 service. As a result, the Town will make arrangements with the City
of Toronto as
to how they will redirect these callers back to our municipality. Should Markham decide to implement the 311 service
in the future, there is an ability to re-route the identified 10 phone numbers
directly to our local municipality.
When the Town of Markham and/or the Region
of York decides to move forward with 311 services, this agreement with the City
of Toronto will
not impact our ability to implement the service. There is a clause in the agreement that
states, “either party may, on at least six (6) months written notice, request
the conversion of one or more of the shared wire Centers from the current
routing to the other format, and the other party shall cooperate in such
conversion”.
In further discussion with the Town of Richmond Hill and the
City of Vaughan,
they are both recommending that Council sign off on the 311 Agreement with the
City of Toronto.
This 311 Agreement with the City of Toronto does not impact
the Town of Markham
either financially or for our future use of 311 services.
FINANCIAL
CONSIDERATIONS AND TEMPLATE:
Not Required
HUMAN RESOURCES CONSIDERATIONS:
Not Required
ALIGNMENT WITH STRATEGIC PRIORITIES:
Not Applicable
BUSINESS
UNITS CONSULTED AND AFFECTED:
Information Technology Services
RECOMMENDED
BY: _______________________
Rhonda Bosch
Manager, Contact Centre
________________________
Andy Taylor
Commissioner Corporate Services
ATTACHMENTS:
Attachment 1 –
311 Call Routing Agreement between the City of Toronto (“Toronto”) and the Town of Markham (“Markham”)