NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Metro Nashville 911 dispatchers are getting thousands of non-life-threatening calls every month, and a new campaign is aiming to curb this problem.

Nashville’s Emergency Communications Department and Hub Nashville are trying to help people understand when, and when not to call 911. They said Metro gets 11,000 non-life-threatening calls to 911 every month.

“911 is an in-progress threat to someone’s life or property. If there is something happening right now that if we don’t take action that person is going to become harmed or more harmed or the property is going to become harmed or more harmed, that’s when we hope people will call 911,” said Stephen Martini, Director of the Metro Davidson County Department of Emergency Communications. “The opportunity that we’re thrilled about here with hubNashville – and I think it’s important we differentiate hubNashville from 311. hubNashville is a section of the Mayor’s office that receives these types of concerns about anything that are city related – city services related.”

Leaders said if more people call 311 instead it can help stop these calls from interfering with major emergencies.

“Calling 311 is a great resource during the day – Monday through Friday 8-5 during business hours. But there are a lot of things you can do on the hubNashville smart phone app or on the hubNashville website that are monitored by our dispatchers, 24-7/365,” Martini said. “They’re receiving these notifications saying there’s a pothole, there’s a noisy party down the street from my house – all those things. This notification is coming to a dispatcher, they’re receiving, they’re reviewing it and it’s being dispatched out like it normally would – only without a phone call, which keeps our dispatchers focused on answering 911 phone calls.”

You may notice new billboard messages around town to help clarify who to call.

If you need non-emergency Metro services or information, hubNashville is available 24-7 at Hub.Nashville.Gov or through the Hub Nashville app in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.