Portland’s 911 center has vastly improved its call answering times since hitting rock bottom in June, the latest data shows.

Dispatchers answered 46 percent of calls within 10 seconds during October, according to figures published by the Portland Bureau of Emergency Communications. That’s up from a low of 8 percent in June, as The Oregonian reported this summer.

Though call-takers are improving, the numbers are still far below national standards. Those benchmarks say 90 percent of calls should be answered in 10 seconds or less during a call center’s busy hours.

Bob Cozzie, the Emergency Communications director, on Friday attributed the improved numbers to his agency hiring more dispatchers and making technical changes that connect callers to dispatchers faster.

The central tenet of that change was to disable a “filter” that routes calls from cell phones to a recording that prompts callers to make a noise or press a button in order to be patched through to a dispatcher. The filter is meant to weed out accidental dials, officials say.

Since turning it off – except during times when all dispatchers are busy at once – call times have improved, the data shows.

Cozzie, the bureau director, told The Oregonian this summer that he aims to hire dozens more dispatchers in the next five years. The most recent data report indicates the 911 center plans to seek funding for 10 more dispatchers in the next city budget.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com