Alberta Operational Communications Centres
On this page
About us
The Operational Communications Centre (OCC) provides critical operational support to RCMP officers in the field. The OCC is the first point of contact for the public requesting police assistance in both emergency and non-urgent matters. In Alberta there are two provincial OCCs: Edmonton and Red Deer. These centres provide support to 136 detachments and satellite offices throughout Alberta's RCMP communities including Alberta Sheriffs (traffic units) and various municipal police agencies, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year.
Alberta OCCs receive an average of 2,500 calls a day; evenings and weekends being the busiest times. Operators receive calls, enter information in computer systems and evaluate what services are required. Dispatchers then send the information onto officers as quickly as possible, ensuring priority is placed on public and officer safety. To expedite calls, and to dispatch officers as quickly as possible, it is important for members of the public to have key information available when calling.
Location is an important piece of information when calling 9-1-1. Without an exact address or landmark, geolocation data from mobile devices can only provide a general location, usually only providing officers a 30 km radius of where the call is coming from. This can greatly increase the amount of time it takes for an officer to locate someone who maybe be in distress.
During regular business hours, 8 am - 4 pm Monday to Friday, we request that you contact your local detachment for the following:
- updates to current files
- non-injury motor vehicle accidents
- property crimes not in progress
- all other non-emergency situations
Before calling 9-1-1
- What is your location? Do you know the address or can you give driving instructions?
- Are you, or the person you are with, severely injured?
- Is this a life or death situation?
- Who is involved? Where are they? Are there weapons involved?
Remember:
- Deactivated cell phones can still call 9-1-1. Remove the battery from old devices.
- Unregistered cell phones can still call 9-1-1. Geolocation data usually provides a 30 km search area.
- If you dial 9-1-1 in error, please remain on the line and do not hang up.
Careers with us
A career as an OCC telecommunications operator is an exceptionally rewarding career path within an organization that thrives on helping others. Telecommunications Operators are expected to make quick, responsible decisions in their role as the "lifeline" to the police officer in the field and to members of the public that are often caught in emergency situations. The RCMP offers an extensive training period to their OCC employees in both the classroom and on the job to ensure all operators have the experience, techniques and knowledge base to help make quick decisions. They graduate having successfully completed the National Telecommunication Operator Training and Field Coach programs. A telecommunications career is a rewarding profession completed by individuals that put public and community safety at the forefront every day of the year.
For information on joining our OCC team please visit Government of Canada jobs.
Behind the frontline: 9-1-1 know your role
Text description - Behind the frontline: 9-1-1 know your role
Jason (9-1-1 operator speaking)
RCMP Bonjour.
Well I mean it's possible that maybe you bought a vehicle that maybe it was stolen, that's possible.
I'm Jason Steel and I work at the Southern Alberta OCC, that's the Operational Control Center for the RCMP here in Alberta.
Some days there might be not much going on, but most days we are busy. We are all day flat out busy.
That was the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center? Is that the one you called?
Tracy (9-1-1 supervisor speaking)
We find that one of the most troubling things is we deal with 9-1-1 as well as non-emergency calls for the Province for all the RCMP divisions. For us, people that hang up before telling us what they were calling about on 9-1-1 is certainly one of our biggest challenges. We encourage everyone to stay on the line even if whatever it is they are calling about is changed or they see that someone else is on the line calling the same thing in. We need to be able to match the call with the event. Unfortunately when people hang up without us speaking to them, it then causes a back-load in our Comms center. Each of the operators that are here today will be dealing with those types of calls and it can take 3 to 5 minutes or more to try to make that file and to follow up with it with the requirements we have.
Kim (9-1-1 operator speaking)
When you reach the police, you are talking to the dispatch center, your talking to me or one of my co-workers. Often it is not from the area you are calling from, so we need to ask you where you are calling from and we want you to help us by giving information of where you are. We know that you are in a stressful situation, so we are there to help you.
Jason (9-1-1 operator speaking)
The key things we are looking for when you call 9-1-1, is we want to know where you are, who you are, what's happening...when this happened. Is it something that's going on right now or is this something that has happened in the past. We want to know about safety concerns like weapons, alcohol, drugs because those impact how our officers are going to attend and what their going to be dealing with when they get there.
Tracy (9-1-1 supervisor speaking)
Cell phones have added pocket dialing, that's a big concern. We also have people that don't realize that disconnected cell phones still can call 9-1-1, even if it not on a service providers. We actually had an incident a few weeks ago where one cell phone was responsible for 300 phone calls within a 4 hour period and that was tying up our resources on our 9-1-1 operators that are a primary service access point that take the calls before we get them and then to our center as well as our officers that were trying to investigate and trying to find out where this phone was coming form. A disconnected cell phone doe not come in with the phone number. We can't just call the person back on that line. With that in mind our investigation opportunities to try and find out who had that phone last is very difficult. We knew that likely there wasn't an emergency, you could hear a child playing in the background, but unfortunately they didn't realize that it was calling through.
Kim (9-1-1 operator speaking)
When you call in, we understand that you are under a lot of stress. Your dialing 9-1-1 because your in a potential emergency situation. For us we want to be there as your support, we want to try to get you down to a level where your going to be able to give us information to help you.
Jason (9-1-1 operator speaking)
When someone calls and the first thing they say is just "get them here!", but they haven't told us where here is, they haven't told us what's happening there, we don't know. All they know is that something major has just happened and they're scared. So we just need to be able to calm them down, get them back on track and focus so they can help us to help them.
[RCMP crest and signature: Royal Canadian Mounted Police / Gendarmerie royale du Canada]
[RCMP copyright: © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, as represented by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2016]
[Canada wordmark]
[end of video]
Behind the frontline: 9-1-1 answer the call
Text description - Behind the frontline: 9-1-1 answer the call
Kim (9-1-1 operator speaking)
RCMP Bonjour.
Good thanks, how can I help you?
My name is Kim, I'm a telecommunications officer, and I work out of Edmonton Headquarters in K Division.
What city or town is this for? Valley view......okay
What made me decide to become an operator was I took schooling for criminology. I like helping people and I thrive in a high paced environment, so it was the job for me.
Tracy (9-1-1 supervisor speaking)
I actually was lucky enough to be at the Lethbridge college for my policing program. It was suggested that I should look at telecoms. I ended up here and I love it, I can't imagine doing anything else.
Jason (9-1-1 operator speaking)
My name is Jason Steel and I work here at the Southern Alberta OCC it is our Operational Control center in Red Deer Alberta and I've been here for 13 years.
To start training you need to have your grade 12 diploma. The actual training is all done in house and it is several weeks of classroom time.
Tracy (9-1-1 supervisor speaking)
When you come up you learn your call taking side of things, like what is needed when we receive the call from the client and then you are matched with a coach and you work as a call taker for some time so you can get comfortable in our communications center. We then send you back down for dispatch training and we do the same thing over. So some classroom time, matching with a coach and then you get on the radio and you get to work with the officers on that side of the house.
Jason (9-1-1 operator speaking)
We are looking for people who do thrive in a really high paced environment. One of the key things we are looking for is for the core values of compassion, respect, accountability, honesty, integrity and professionalism. If you exhibit those asyou go through the interview process, those are some of the key things that we want to see.
Tracy (9-1-1 supervisor speaking)
Jason (9-1-1 operator speaking)
We want to have people who thrive in a fast paced environment who really care about the other person on the other end of the phone. We want compassionate people, but we want people who aren't going to be completely pulled into what's going on for that other person.
Tracy (9-1-1 supervisor speaking)
Certainly someone that's comfortable enough to be able to try to take as much control over the call as possible to obtain the information we need. Usually those people take a lot of pride in their work, are very detail orientated and will do well in a challenging atmosphere. They will enjoy the pace of it, and just know that they're doing something that's so important and apply it to something that is so ever important for the public and officer safety that we deal with on a day to day basis.
[RCMP crest and signature: Royal Canadian Mounted Police / Gendarmerie royale du Canada]
[RCMP copyright: © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, as represented by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2016]
[Canada wordmark]
[end of video]
- Date modified: