Krakow, 21/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - In Krakow on 18 November, the Polish minister for home affairs and administration held an international conference in partnership with the European Emergency Number Association, entitled “Roundtable on 112, the functioning of the emergency number system”. This meeting aimed to highlight the need to promote the idea of an emergency number within the member states.
This presented Poland with the opportunity to present its projects and solutions in this area, particularly those carried out by the Centre for IT projects of the Ministry for home affairs and administration: the “Emergency Calls IT System” (SIPR) and the “Nationwide ICT Network Supporting 112” (OST112). The first of these projects consists of speeding up the handling of calls to 112, by means of a modern, high-performance communication system, “in order to integrate the emergency services in line with the call”, the minister stated. As for OST 112, “its aim is to increase the citizens' safety, by modernising the communication of the emergency services and public policies via the implementation of an integrated communication platform for the emergency notification system”.
A recent Eurobarometer survey showed that only little more than a quarter of the European population (26%) is able spontaneously to quote 112 as the European number to call the police, fire services or an ambulance. In the Czech Republic, Finland, Luxembourg, Poland and Slovakia, most of the population is familiar with this European number. At the bottom of the table are Greece, Italy and the United Kingdom, where less than 10% of the citizens know the number. The member states are responsible for distributing information about 112 to their populations. The European Commission has also ordered them to increase the precision and reliability of caller location information. (VW/transl.fl)