After seven years of work, China's three police hotlines have been integrated into one, to better serve the public, the Ministry of Public Security has said.

Cheng Renhua, director of the ministry's command center, said the public will be able to more easily remember the single number.

He insisted that the single number would boost efficiency of the service by the police.

More than 93 percent of 2,542 public security organs in county- and prefecture-level cities now have just one police hotline -- 110 -- instead of three -- 110, 119 and 122.

The phone number 119 was originally for reporting fires and 122 was for traffic accidents.

Established in 1986, the emergency telephone number 110 has contributed much to the nation's crackdown on crime, Cheng said.

Compared with the 5.95 million calls to 110 in 1997, Chinese police received 127 million calls through the number in the first 11 months of 2010, helping solve 1.21 million criminal cases and leading to the detainment of more than 978,000 suspects.