User:Triptothecottage/Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority

The Emergency Services Telecommunications Authority (ESTA) is an agency of the Government of Victoria, Australia, responsible for Triple Zero call-taking and dispatch of police, fire, ambulance and other emergency services within the state, as well as for radio and telecommunications facilities used by emergency service agencies. ESTA is the only such integrated emergency communications authority in Australia, and one of the largest such organisations in the world by geographic area served.

ESTA was established in 2005 to formalise and strengthen governance of public sector emergency communications, replacing Emergency Communications Victoria (ECV) and the Bureau of Emergency Services Telecommunications (BEST). Inter-agency integration of communications had taken place in the 1990s when Intergraph was contracted by BEST to privatise the service; corruption scandals and poor performance led to ECV taking control as an interim public sector operator.

Several major natural disasters have led to high-profile ESTA failures and subsequent reforms, including the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires and 2016 Melbourne thunderstorm asthma epidemic. In response, ESTA has developed innovative and sophisticated techniques for prioritising emergency calls and diverting some callers to alternative services.

ESTA provides its services to Victoria Police, Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) and the Country Fire Authority (CFA), Ambulance Victoria (AV) and the Victoria State Emergency Service (VICSES). In 2019–20, it answered 2.7 million calls for assistance and dispatched emergency services to 2.2 million events.