National Police Control Room Opens in Birmingham

A new national control room and First Contact Centre for British Transport Police is being officially opened in Birmingham on Thursday, 4 June by the Chair of the British Transport Police Authority (BTPA), Millie Banerjee CBE.

The new Force Control Room Birmingham (FCRB) is responsible for handling all incidents on the rail system outside London and the South East, covering England, Scotland and Wales.

The 54 police staff and 12 police officers working in the FCRB liaise with rail operators, local police and emergency services around the country, responding to calls for assistance, resourcing and handling incidents.

Co-located with the FCRB is a First Contact Centre (FCC), whose 48 operators deal with all non-emergency calls to BTP across England, Scotland and Wales.

'The project aims to deliver better call handling within BTP and hence a better service to the people contacting us,' explains Chief Constable Ian Johnston. 'Communication is the lifeblood of policing and the rail environment in which we operate is extremely time critical. Speedy police response to incidents, big and small, is vital to ensure that the network runs smoothly and passengers and trains are not unduly delayed, and people who need help quickly get it.'

The two year FCC/FCRB implementation project was delivered on time and on budget at a cost of £7.5m.

'This is a significant investment by the rail industry in a vital service for its customers and staff,' said BTPA Chair Millie Banerjee. ' Making it simpler for people to contact BTP and improving control room operations and call handling will lead to improved service and better use of resources.'

Between 2007 and 2009, BTP reduced the number of control rooms around the country from five to two. The FCRB now works alongside the Force Control Room London (FCRL), and the two provide mutual resilience for incident handling across Britain.

With around 70% of calls to control rooms being non-emergency, re-directing them to a dedicated First Contact Centre enables control room staff to concentrate on emergency calls and provide better support to officers on stations and trains. The FCC is currently dealing with around 1,200 calls a day and the project gives BTP the ability to absorb increasing radio and telephone traffic and new forms of communication.

The project has introduced a single national non-emergency Freefone number for the public to use to contact BTP - 0800 40 50 40. Emergency callers should dial 999. There is also a single national dedicated number for rail staff on the internal Railnet system.