Ottawa Police have made changes to its emergency response plans after reviewing last year's response to the shooting of Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and the attack on Parliament Hill.

On Oct. 22, 2014, a patrol constable arrived at the cenotaph two minutes and 32 seconds after the first 911 call and later hundreds of Ottawa police officers raced downtown to respond to the threat of an armed man on the loose.

An internal Ottawa police report found that well-meaning officers who deployed themselves may have added to the chaos and contributed to public panic.

We're lucky this was a lone shooter and that he was not that well trained. - Ottawa Police Supt . Scott Nystedt

"We could have done better and we will do better today," said Supt. Scott Nystedt, who was one of two police commanders who worked with the RCMP during the shooting.

His main concern involves officers who were not scheduled to work but sprang into action without being called in by commanders, and thus couldn't be tracked. There wasn't enough equipment such as radios and cars for them once they arrived on scene.

"Officers working should deploy to the crime scene, but we're trying to contain the ones who are deploying from home," Nystedt said.

He added if the Parliament Hill attacks involved well-trained multiple shooters like the Paris attacks on newspaper Charlie Hebdo, the force would have been caught flat-footed because too many officers responded at once.

"We're lucky this was a lone shooter and that he wasn't well trained. We can't go through all our officers in the first operational period and have no one to deploy 10 to 12 hours later."

Supt. Scott Nystedt says Ottawa police have learned from mistakes made during their response to last year's attack. (Judy Trinh CBC) There were 310 Ottawa police officers who responded to the terror attack, including undercover drug and gang officers who put on balaclavas to hide their identities.

"That shows a breakdown in command when you see those type of things," said security consultant Garry Clement.

Clement, who is also a former RCMP officer, said when you don't know who is out there carrying a gun, "there's a potential problem of shooting your own member."

Nystedt said it's also possible the public mistook masked officers dressed in T-shirts and jeans for armed attackers. Dozens of 911 calls came in about "multiple shooters" contributing to the chaos.

New Ottawa police policies and tools

Since the shooting at the National War Memorial, Ottawa police have identified 36 recommendations of changes to make as a result of the incident.

The full report is not being made public but Nystedt revealed some of the changes the force is making. They include:

All officers patrolling streets during emergency operations must now wear official uniforms.

Undercover officers will not be allowed to mask themselves during emergency operations and will only be used for behind the scenes work such as interviewing witnesses.

The rank and file have also been ordered to stop self-deploying, and to follow proper protocol and wait for instructions from commanders before acting.

Spending more than $500,000 to purchase 30 new night-vision goggles for tactical officers. On the day of the shooting, police SWAT teams were forced to clear Parliament Hill buildings in the dark without proper equipment and used hand signals to communicate with their RCMP counterparts.

Purchasing new radios that can be tracked by GPS and are compatible with the radios used by the Mounties.

Repairing the police mobile command post. On the day of the shooting, the phones and computers in the trailer failed. Nystedt said replacing the command post could cost more $10 million.

City taxpayers may balk at the price tag, but Nystedt believes citizens are now less naive than they were a year ago.

"We live in a safe city and crime has gone down for the past few years ... but as the capital of Canada we are a target," said Nystedt.