Some people ringing the police non-emergency number have encountered wait times of more than an hour in the past month.
File photo. Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
The 105 phone number gets more than 100,000 calls each month.
The police say about a third of calls are abandoned before an operator picks up.
The average hold time is four and a half minutes.
The longest wait recorded was two hours, twenty minutes.
A police spokesperson says long wait-times are undesirable, and can be caused by surges in demand, long phone call durations, and operator availability.
Emergency calls to 111 are prioritised.
The average wait time for a 111 call was 29 seconds in April, and the longest wait was just over seven minutes.
