SHENZHEN: Beginning this week, citizens in this southern city could simply dial 110 to report all crimes, fire alarms or traffic accidents to the police.

"110, 119 and 122 have been combined into one special service hotline 110," said Zhang Xicai, spokesman with Shenzhen Public Security Bureau, "citizens only need to dial 110 later to report all emergencies that used to be handled separately by 110, 119 and 122."

The city's three hotlines 110, 119 and 122 were designed to handle emergency calls regarding crimes, fire alarm and traffic accidents or jam respectively.

Ministry of Public Security has required all of the country's municipal public security bureaus to finish the combination of 110, 119 and 122 hotlines before the end of 2008.

Shenzhen is the first mainland city to have fulfilled the ministry's requirement.

"We have got it done almost two years in advance," Zhang told reporters.

The combination would facilitate future information sharing and coordination among all public security and service units while allowing them to respond to emergencies more quickly, Zhang said.

"To make sure that the new emergency system runs smoothly, we have established a new unified command and control network."

"110 command center of Shenzhen Public Security Bureau will be the core of the network while Bao'an 110 and Longgang 110 will work as district command centers...the existing fire Service and traffic police command centers will serve in the network as two professional command centers."

Hong Kong Police has the similar command and control network with three regional command centers operating in Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and New Territories respectively to handle emergency calls dialled in through the same number "999".