You’re not the only one having to deal with traffic delays because of road construction.
Police officers are also feeling the brunt of the traffic, so much so, it is seeing response times to calls go up.
According to a Guelph Police Services Board report, response times have gone up moderately through the first six months of this year.
Staff say “possible reasons” for the increases include road projects such as Speedvale and Woolwich, the extended shutdown of College and Edinburgh and the York Road closure.
Of note, the median response time for the highest priority calls has gone up by over a minute, from 5:27 to 6:30 year-over-year.
Call volume continues to be a concern, but an anomaly caused by Android phones have made the true year-over-year picture a bit murky.
“January to June 2023 saw a single year unprecedented increase in calls for service of some 21 per cent over 2022,” the report stated.
“This one-time increase is attributed to dropped 911 calls caused by Android phones in which manufacturers had incorporated application upgrades.
“Taking into consideration this 2023 anomaly, we continue to see a steady increase in calls for service as indicated by the fact that the January to June calls for service for 2024 were 4.6 per cent higher than the same period in 2022.”
There were 37,024 calls for service through the first six months of the year.
The report added mental health and domestic violence calls went up. Attempted suicide calls have gone up by over 45 per cent. Calls for break and enters and vehicle thefts have gone down.
