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EENA, the European Emergency Number Association, is a Brussels-based NGO set up in 1999 dedicated to promoting high-quality emergency services reached by the number 112 throughout the EU. EENA serves as a discussion platform for emergency services, public authorities, decision makers, associations and solution providers in view of improving emergency response in accordance with citizens' requirements. EENA is also promoting the establishment of an efficient system for alerting citizens about imminent or developing emergencies.
The EENA memberships include about 630 emergency services representatives from 43 European countries, 50 solution providers, 9 international associations/organisations as well as 26 Members of the European Parliament.
News
UK - The first ever eCall Interoperability Testing event, organised in cooperation with ETSI's Centre for Testing and Interoperability (CTI), will take place in Nuneaton (UK) from 22 to 24 May 2012.
Italy - A child of 5 years, remained under the rubble, it was saved thanks to a phone triangulation between New York and 113 emergency number in Rome
Russia - Russia is merging all its emergency numbers into a single hotline thus people will no longer have to choose between five emergency numbers
112 Awards - The 112 Awards are handed by EENA and recognise and congratulate individuals and organisations that have shown evidence of extraordinary behaviour and/or achievements under the following categories: Outstanding Education on 112, Outstanding Call-Taker, Outstanding NG112 initiative, Outstanding Rescue, Outstanding eCall, Outstanding Emergency Call Center, Outstanding Political Initiative, Outstanding National 112 System and Outstanding Citizen.
Republic of Korea - The bill seeks to prevent the repetition of a tragic incident in Suwon, where was brutally raped and murdered a woman in spite of calling the police for help.
EENA Operations Committee - This document has been written by EENA's Operations Committee members and describes main issues related to the eCall service. It assembles relevant currently available information about this issue.
EUESW 2012 - All the presentations done during the 3 days of conference are already available together with their related photos.
112 Awards - The 112 Awards Ceremony was held last night in Riga, Latvia, on the heels of the annual Emergency Services Workshop. Organised by the European Emergency Number Association, 9 prestigious awards for emergency services and exemplary citizens were handed.
NG112 - New document Publication - The European Emergency Number Association (EENA) today released the first public version of the Next Generation 112 Long Term Definition standard ("NG112 LTD"). This document defines a long-term architecture for European Emergency Services and remains voluntarily close to NENA i3 standard.
Finland - The Emergency Response Centre Administration stated that "harsher punishments are a drastic measure" that could lead to a situation where the threshold for calling the emergency services is too high, thus discouraging calls in real emergencies.
Ukraine - The tender for the 112 emergency phone system in Ukraine (equipment and services to implement the 112 emergency phone system) has been awarded.
Ukraine - The law envisages the creation of a central executive agency, operational services, emergency detachments that will use telecommunication networks, software, hardware and other means.
Georgia - A single emergency phone number, 112, is planned to be launched this Spring in Georgia. However, according to a legal advocacy group, phone operators are charging clients from January despite this service have not been launched yet.
Sweden - In regards to the article published on the 5/03/2012: It says that a 12-year-old boy called to the emergency alarm to give alert of fire. However, he was told to stop making prank calls. According to SOS Alarm this information is not correct and refers to read the information here linked. SOS Alarm explains that the boy's call came 23 minutes after the first fire alarm (same incident was already reported). The operator asked the boy if fire trucks were on site and he confirmed it hence, the call ends because the fire was already handled.
United Kingdom - Members of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) have agreed to outsource the London Fire Brigade's 999 control and mobilising service.
Ukraine - Emergencies Minister of Ukraine, Viktor Baloha, has announced that the 112 emergency phone system -which provides aid to the population in emergencies- will start working in all over the country from 2014. According to the Minister, launching the 112 system will cost Hr 650 million.
Ukraine - The Verkhovna Rada has approved a law to create the 112 emergency phone system. The law introduces 112 single phone number to call emergency services, instead of several phone numbers: 101, 102, 103 and 104. The 112 emergency phone system will start working in the cities hosting Euro 2012, in particular in Kyiv, Lviv, Kharkiv and Donetsk in Q2 2012 and then in other regions of Ukraine.
EU - Mathieu Grosch MEP, EPP Group Coordinator in the Transport and Tourism Committee of the European Parliament, has called for all passenger carrier companies to actively promote the European emergency number 112. British Airways, Easyjet and other transport companies recently teamed up in a campaign to raise awareness among passengers about the potentially life-saving 112 number.
Austria - The Federal Court stated that the police emergency centres (133 and 112 emergency numbers) were "outdated" and called for urgent structural changes. After an audit made in 2010, it was reported that, except modern infrastructure in Vienna, the systems integrated a lot of staff to answer the phone but were inefficient due to inadequate technical equipment. After the Auditors report on the police emergency number, the Home Office has promised improvements.
Sweden - When a 12-year-old boy rang the emergency services to alert them of a fire which ended up killing a 5-year-old girl, he was told by operators to stop making prank calls.
EU - The 112 Newsletter is a periodic publication of the EENA that provides an update on EENA latest, ongoing and upcoming activities. Enjoy your reading.
Belgium - An agreement was reached on the construction of a new emergency call center for 112, including police and firefighters.
France - The Fire Service and the emergency medical service of Perpignan have formally joined forces with the opening of their common platform for receiving and processing all emergency calls made to 15, 18 and 112 numbers.
The Netherlands - A number of 112 emergency control centres will disappear as the result of a 50-million-euro budget cut, but Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten says this will actually improve quality. The new national emergency control centres should be operational in five years. Minister Opstelten will submit his proposal to parliament before the summer.
Belgium - The Crisis Centre now allows local authorities facing an emergency to get access to a new service 24/7: this service can quickly make available to the public a number of information via a multilingual contact centre.
EU - The European road transport industry, as represented by the International Road Transport Union (IRU), has thrown its weight behind an European Commission initiative to promote the common European emergency number 112 Europe-wide to enhance road safety and provide a rapid and effective response in case of a road accident.
EU - The European emergency number 112 is still unknown by a large majority of Europeans, please help us to spread the word on 10 and 11 February, at the occasion of the European 112 Day (11/2)! Please see and share the 112 video spot (email, Facebook, Twitter, your blog, your website...) with your friends, your family, your colleagues and all your relatives
EU - At the occasion of the European 112 Day (11/2 - 11 February), the European Commission published several reports on 112.
Malta - Last year, the maltese police control room received 564 188 calls to 112. It is planned to deploy more people to the service and new softwares would also be installed making it easier for respondents to direct callers.
France - The new operations will deals with operations in Paris and in three departments of the inner suburbs.
Sweden - The incident took place on New Year's morning when a man was struck by a cerebral hemorrhage in Sweden. His girfriend immediately called 112 but was unable to get an operator on the line.
EENA Operations Committee - This document has been written by EENA's Operations Committee members and describes main issues related to the accessibility of 112 services for people with disabilities, assembles relevant currently available information about this issue, outlines some of the 'best practices' from a system-focused as well as user-focused perspective and hopefully inspires further action eradicating barriers in access to crucial, potentially life saving 112 services.
UK - "If you have to dial 999 the first voice you hear could belong to Glen Griffiths". Read the story of an emergency medical dispatcher for the London Ambulance Service.
Ukraine - "As the Euro 2012 European Football Championship will be held in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Lviv from June 2012, the Public Security Center 112 will train people to render aid to the population through the 112 emergency phone system in each of the cities before the beginning of the championship," the Emergencies Ministry of Ukraine said on Friday.
About 50% of Swiss citizens do not know the emergency number to call in case of medical emergency. About 90% of them are not aware of the European emergency number 112.
Ireland - A pilot SMS service has been launched for enhancing access to Emergency Call Answering Services using the 112 telephone number. This Pilot service will, if successful, provide a vastly superior solution to accessing emergency services than the current system.
Publication of the Transnational 112 calls EENA Operations Document (10/01/2012) (558KB)EENA Operations Committee - In 2009, the EENA was contacted by several emergency services representatives requesting a database with long-numbers of emergency services so that to enable them to communicate with each other. The first aim of this document is to provide the framework for the content of the database, its consolidation and the secured access to the database. This document also intends to define a basic set of protocols for the PSAPs using the database and to define the validation and verification methods.
Belgium - Calls made in Belgium via a GSM network to the police are now georeferenced. It should also be implemented for Medical services and fire-fighters in the near future.
Estonia - Ambulance crews said 2011 was one of the busiest years and chief medic Raul Adlas said the number of calls remains unusually high.
Russia - In the near future, mobile phones in Russia will be equipped with an SOS button that will call emergency services and send GPS information at the same time. This project is developed by the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
The 112 Newsletter is a periodic publication of the EENA that provides an update on EENA latest, ongoing and upcoming activities.
Ukraine - Ukraine's Emergencies Minister Viktor Baloha believes that the Emergencies Ministry and the Interior Ministry should be merged and hopes that this initiative will be supported at the state level. According to Baloha, other priority tasks for the ministry and Ukrainian rescuers for next year include the continued work to set up the 112 emergency phone system as well as the provision of response to possible emergencies that may arise during the Euro 2012 European Football Championship.
The EENA is delighted to release its publication on the organisation of Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) in Europe. This document has been prepared with the generous contributions of members from the EENA Advisory Board and the 112 Emergency Services Staff Network (112 ESSN). You can view an abstract via the link above (If you wish to get the full document, please contact EENA).
EENA event - The EU-ESW 2012 will gather European emergency services, public authorities and industry representatives that will share best practices. National 112 systems and regulation will be discussed during plenary sessions while operations and technical issues, including Next Generation 112, will be addressed during parallel tracks. In 2012, the 112 Awards Ceremony will be held at the occasion of the conference.
Galicia, Spain - The Minister for the Presidency, Public Administration and Justice of the Galician Region met the Executive Director of the EENA and officially announced that Galicia will host the final workshop of the REACH112 project in June 2012.
The EENA is delighted to announce the launch of its official Twitter!
France - The very new emergency call centre of Nice (France), equiped with advanced softwares, have been launched on 22 November 2011. A second one will be ready early 2013.
EU - The "European Parliament Written Declaration 0035/2011 on the need for accessible 112 emergency services" was adopted today. It invites the Commission "to promote the development of fully accessible and reliable Next Generation 112 services independent from devices and networks, using the Total Conversation concept" and "to put forward legislative and standardisation proposals to make 112 services fully accessible to all citizens, giving priority to sign language services using video technologies and text-based services to ensure the inclusion of deaf, hard-of-hearing and speech-disabled users".
EU projects - The REACH112 consortium prepared an update on this project that intends to improve person-to-person communications and access to emergency services for people with disabilities.
New EENA Document Publication - The EENA publishes the Emergency Silent, Hang-Up and Abandoned 112 Calls Operations Document. It has been written by EENA's Operations Committee members and describes possible cases where silent, hang-up and abandoned 112 calls correspond to real emergencies, assemble all information about this issue and outline some of the 'best practices' from the authorities' perspective.
EU - The European Union of the Deaf asked to the Commission why the European Directive 2009/136/EC on universal service that should have been put into practice in all the EU countries by 25 May 2011 has not been implemented in the facts.
Romania - Around 4.6 million calls were made to the emergency number 112 in the third quarter of this year in Romania and only 31.7 percent of them were real, while the rest were hoaxes. Over 1450 Romanians who called 112 to stage a hoax have been sanctioned so far, according to the Special Telecommunications Service (STS).
Belgium - A Member of the Parliament of Brussels Region denounced the deficiencies of the emergency call centre of Brussels (EMS and Fire): staff shortages, uncertainty of staff status, small number of ambulances, no identification of the origin of the calls...
Bulgaria - All emergency services calls in Bulgaria now go through the special number 112, meaning that the country finally has come into line with European Union requirements.
Netherlands - Dutch minister for safety and justice Ivo Opstelten said 112-apps could become a possibility in the future. These apps would allow people in emergency situations to reach police, firefighters or ambulances.
Bulgaria - All emergency calls will be redirected to 112 starting October 03, 2011. Once 112 will be universally known, the other numbers will be safely deactivate. Starting next Monday, regardless if one dials 150 (ambulance), 160 (fire brigade) or 166 (police), he will be connected to 112.
HeERO project (eCall) - Current state-of-the-art analysis in the area of 112 resp. E112 calls has been undertaken to build up the reference document for identification of the functional and operational requirements, HW installation and SW implementation needs in each HeERO project member state. This analytical task is focusing on all parts of the future eCall service chain which means the readiness of the in-vehicle system equipment, telecommunication infrastructure (specifically 112/E112 related parts) and PSAP infrastructure.
Bulgaria - A 50-year-old man made 1140 false calls to the 112 emergency hotline in a week. Under Bulgaria's National Emergency Call System Act, the fine soars to BGN 10 000 - 20 000 if the false alert resulted in the mobilization of emergency response units.
NG112 - New document Publication - The results of the survey launched by the EENA Next Generation 112 Committee have been published. The survey started by the end of June and asked Emergency Services representatives about their operational requirements for the next generation 112.
France - A relay centre has just been created in France. It will allow deaf and hard of hearing people to get access to emergency services (EMS, fire-fighters, police) via the 114 number.
Turkey - Some 97 percent of the calls made to the 112 Emergency Service in the southeastern province of Bitlis are prank calls, causing problems for citizens who call the hotline for actual emergencies, Bitlis Health Director Şevki Erkal said Tuesday. Of the 1.500 calls made to the hotline every day on average, only some 45 of them pertain to real health emergencies.
Ireland - The new Emergency Call Answering Service (ECAS) service was launched last year and aims to improve speed and accuracy. Calls are now being answered within 0.5 seconds. The emergency call centre is based at Johnstown and is one of three centres in the country (the others are at Dublin and Ballyshannon) and, between them, they handle between three to four million emergency calls in the Republic each year. Each centre is a replica of the other.
Brussels - The first measure to ensure that by 2015 cars can call emergency services for drivers when they have a serious accident has been adopted by the European Commission today. The Commission wants the life-saving eCall system to be fitted to all new models of cars and light vehicles from 2015. The adopted Commission Recommendation urges Member States to ensure that mobile phone network operators upgrade their infrastructure so that eCalls are efficiently passed on to emergency services.
New Document Publication - The EENA publishes the EENA Operations Document: Emergency Services Service Chain Definition. This document has been written by Operations Committee members and intents to describe the models which apply to the organisation of the 112 emergency calls' handling. Although this organisation varies from country to country, in general, it covers specific tasks i.e. the reception of the call, the data collection (i.e. caller location, detailed data about the emergency situation and, if possible, call history data), the classification of the call and finally the dispatch of appropriate intervention resources.
Russia - Disabled people are to get vital new training and career opportunities due to the launch of a special training course at the St. Petersburg State University of the Fire-Fighting Service of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry. According to the ministry's press service, the new course, which targets disabled people and lasts for 72 academic hours, will allow those who successfully complete the course to work as operators of the Service 112 round-the-clock emergency call center.
Estonia - This academic year, the 20 students studying to be rescue leaders at the Academy of Security Sciences' Väike-Maarja Rescue College will study under an expanded curriculum where they will learn to handle police-related emergency calls.
France - General Gilles Glin, new director of Paris' firefighters told that handling of emergency calls has to be improved. The launch of the new call centre will be his first main task.
Finland - Emergency centers annually receive hundreds of thousands of calls made in error. Usually a phone in a caller's pocket selects the emergency number by mistake.
Estonia - Out of the country's two emergency numbers - 110 for summoning the police and 112, the general emergency number - only the latter will be kept, as the state has decided to merge the efforts of both agencies' phone operators and place them in same buildings.
Bulgaria - 112 emergency phone line receives between 8.000-10.000 phone calls every day, said Stoyan Gramatikov, Director of the 112 National System Directorate with the Interior Ministry, in an interview with FOCUS News Agency. The average call-waiting in Bulgaria is of 3 to 5 seconds, while in Europe the maximum time for the call-waiting should not exceed 20 seconds.
Bulgaria - 8 people have been rescued in two incidents with a yacht and a fishing boat in the coastal town of Sozopol.
European Commission - The European Commission has recently published a study, which aims to assess the use of 112 and access to emergency services available to citizens travelling, living and working in ten countries of the Mediterranean area. The results of the study are now available and will be shared with the authorities of the Mediterranean Partner Countries in the context of discussing possibilities to improve the access and the organisation of emergency services in the region.
Sweden - Twice in 13 minutes the man called the emergency number 112 and told about his symptoms. But the nurse who answered did not feel they where serious enough and sent no ambulance, even though there were vacant resources.
United-Kingdom - The Ofcom study into Assessment of VoIP Location capabilities to Support Emergency Services is now available.
Romania - Mountain rescuers, police and local hunters searched for the children for hours after a Belgian woman called the emergency number 112 and said they had got lost. The group of 34 Belgian scouts has been saved by Romanian mountain rescuers after they got lost in Zarandului Mountains.
USA - The Federal Communications Commission took action today to enhance the public's ability to contact emergency services during times of crisis and to enable public safety personnel to obtain more accurate information regarding the location of the caller. Specifically, the Commission strengthened the Enhanced 911 (E911) location accuracy rules for wireless carriers and sought comment on improving both 911 availability and E911 location determination for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.
France - Since this summer, the European emergency number 112 replaces 16 16 for coast guards that is no longer operational.
Belgium - Posters with nformation about the European emergency number 112 will be displayed in several Belgian airports.
Belgium - French speaking citizens called 112 in Dutch speaking region. According to the article, the case was not handled.
Italy - The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Interior Minister Maroni in Milan and the Lombardy region Governor Formigoni. The service will then be extended to the whole of Italy. It will allow more rapid rescue operations and rationalization of costs and resources.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution on Universal Service and 112. After several months of debate, MEPs agreed on a set of actions to raise citizens' awareness of 112 and improve its functioning.
European Parliament - Raising public awareness of EU emergency phone number could save lives this summer, said Parliament in a resolution passed on Tuesday. But the accuracy and reliability of caller information still need to be improved, it added.
Ukraine - Ukrainian Emergencies Minister Viktor Baloha has said that a 112 emergency phone number will be launched in the cities of Ukraine that will host the Euro 2012 European Football Championship (Kyiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Lviv) by the beginning of the sports event.