I was shocked to read a Facebook post by the Singapore Police Force on May 2 stating that only a third of the 1.2 million calls made to its 999 hotline last year required direct police intervention or were true emergencies.

There might be a simple explanation for this - 999 is just easier to remember than the non-emergency hotline number 1800-255-0000.

If the authority could introduce a simpler, shorter number, similar to the 1777 non-emergency ambulance hotline, I am sure the volume of non-emergency calls to the police emergency hotline will drop sharply.

Lim Kong Hiong