Faster for the Urgent: A New Approach to Non-Emergency Calls

This City of Bowling Green, KY municipal meeting on March 5, 2026, discussed the implementation of a new technology system called Ava, designed to handle non-emergency calls to the police dispatch center. Ava is an automated virtual assistant that answers non-emergency calls, collects relevant information, and routes calls appropriately, thereby reducing the workload on human dispatchers who handle 911 emergency calls. The system aims to improve response efficiency, reduce dispatcher stress, and enhance communication with callers by providing text message updates. Ava is already live and operational, helping to filter non-emergency calls and allowing dispatchers to focus on urgent 911 calls. No specific procurement details such as contract awards or vendor names were mentioned during the discussion.