The General Directorate of Public Security received over 8.5 million calls to report accidents and fires at its operations rooms over the past six months.

Col. Khaled Al-Zubn, director of public relations at the directorate, in a statement to the Saudi Press Agency, said: “The operations rooms received 8,509,390 calls to report traffic accidents and fires on its centralized telephone number 999 since March. The operations rooms issued immediate instructions to its field patrol teams to take action or passed the information to relevant departments for action.”

Concerted efforts made by officials in cooperation with various security departments led to the continued success of control rooms in general. He said the greatest challenge faced by the security operations rooms was the current expansion work at the Grand Mosque, which allowed millions of Umrah pilgrims to complete their rituals, especially during the month of Ramadan.

When a call is received, a security patrol is alerted and ordered to take action. "The room also monitors if the patrol has located the accident site and the action taken including contacting the person who made the report to ensure the patrol has arrived and remedial action has been taken,” he said.

He said the largest number of calls came during Ramadan and the vacation season when domestic tourists flocked to tourist destinations.

He said Riyadh patrols received the highest number of calls at over 3 million.