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The 112 Newsletter, Issue 12
European Emergency Number Association - EENA 112
3rd European Emergency Numbers Conference and Exhibition
Under the patronage of Mr Stavros Dimas,
Member of the European Commission
The 3rd European Emergency Numbers Conference and Exhibition will be held at the Sheraton Brussels Airport Hotel and Conference Centre on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of December 2005 in Brussels, Belgium. Participants are invited to register through our website and to submit contributions in reply to the call for papers. After examination the Scientific and Organizing Advisory Commettee will issue the pre-programme by the 15th of July. After this date an additional 10% will be charged while after October 15, 2005 an additional 20% will be charged.
Call for papers for the 3rd European Emergency Number Conference and Exhibition
EENA invites telecommunications specialists, emergency professionals and representatives of the final user organizations to present their (good and bad) experiences with the 112 as well as other emergency call numbers, their plans, their proposals and the new challenges for the future. The papers should correspond to the following themes:
- How are emergency call centres organised across the EU? Are common centres better than separate centres? How are the calls to the 112 transferred in countries where the 112 is not the national single emergency call number?
- Testimonies from citizens about their experiences with the 112 and other emergency call numbers
- Handling emergency calls from people with disabilities
- Use of electronic health cards in emergencies
- Systems of automated emergency calls from cars, home alarm systems, etc.
- Emergency numbers for non life threatening situations (lost cards, animal ambulances, etc.),
- Experiences, challenges and problems of emergency services handling calls to emergency call numbers,
- Telecommunications issues linked with emergency call numbers (call centres, localisation, operators, etc.)
- Significance of 112 and other call numbers for different sectors including: Insurance companies, Traffic accidents, Safety in the workplace,
- Evaluation of emergency services on the basis of quality criteria from different points of view (medical, police, fire fighter) in conjunction with the already existing methodology developed by DECO (Portugal) and the implementation of ISO and EN standards (ISO 9000 / 9001 / 9002, EN 17000 / 17024). Need for an accreditation of certification body at European level
A special session will be organized for product and system presentations by companies.
All presentations will be accepted following an evaluation by the working group on the 3rd EENA conference made up of members of the Scientific and Operational Advisory Committee as well of the Commercial Advisory Committee.
EENA also accepts proposals for keynote speakers:
Political personalities
Heads of PSAPs from big cities with localization of mobile phones activated
On the basis of the proposed papers several parallel sessions will be organised. Main issues treated in parallel sessions will be briefly presented at a final plenary session.
Session chairpersons will be requested to scrupulously respect the timetable.
Some contribution from EENNA giving a global overview on emergency telecommunications
Read the article "Emergency Telecommunications for European Citizens" (0B)EENA underlines some initiatives
While waiting for eCall, PSA Peugeot Citroen has been already offering for the third year now solutions to their customers in case of crash within France, Germany and Italy...
EENA at the European Commission
EENA at the European Parliament
As announced during the conclusions of the last 112 conference and exhibition, EENA has been strenghtening the actions at the European Parliament and we are happy to include here some first results...EENA thanks the MEPs committed to a better 112 for the Citizens.
Thanks to the MEP Ms Frédérique RIES, a specific line had been adopted to finance actions on the 112. This 24th of May, the call for proposals launched by the European Commission is a concrete result, even if only a part of the comment has been taken into account.
WRITTEN QUESTION E-3469/04 by Stavros Arnaoutakis (PSE)to the Commission
Subject: Death of five-year old boy through negligence in handling an emergency call and the European emergency call number '112'
WRITTEN QUESTION E-3470/04 by Stavros Arnaoutakis (PSE)to the Commission
Subject: Making caller location information available for calls to the single European emergency call number '112' and notifying the public of the existence of this number
WRITTEN QUESTION E-0348/05 by Frédérique Ries (ALDE)to the Commission
Subject: Users Forum
EENA also managed to include specific comments regarding 112, the caller location and aspects of emergency telecommunications in several reports at the European Parliament on "Road Safety Action Plan, Sustained Tourism". You will be able to read the approved document in the next 112 Newsletter issue.
EENA's Advisory Committee
Some comments from participants...
LOCATION in mobile emergency call
One important thing that is currently unknown by most of European citizen is that today it may be much more effective in case of emergency to call from a fixed line than from a mobile. The reason is that most of emergency call centers can check and locate the user that calls from a fixed phone, whereas it is not yet the case for emergency call coming from mobile phones.
Things have to be changed. To do so, political will is a key factor. That is the reason why any papers and initiatives that brings this subject on the table are of value. One example is maybe the paper written by Trueposition (http://www.trueposition.com/e112_issues_and_answers.pdf). A part of this document is of good value: presentation of the status, importance of the location information. But unfortunately the document also introduce technical comparison of solutions in a biased and partial way. That is quite natural to promote its own solution showing all its advantages and stressing on drawbacks of competitive solutions. As a promoter of satellite positioning, Alcatel Space could present many advantages of the satellite solution and drawbacks of U-TDOA that are omitted in the paper.
Anyway, the most important thing in a first step -that has been agreed by Trueposition on the EENA forum- is not to debate what is the best location technology (this can be done independently and in parallel) but to introduce "location" in the E112 chain. Today, most of the PSAPs and E112 call centers are not able to get/display/treat automatic positioning -in particular of mobile phones-: this can be done today without any assumption on the used technology. It is not necessary to wait for technological tradeoffs. In all cases it is an X,Y,(Z) and a level of confidence (accuracy, integrity) that can be transmitted to the PSAP/Call-center applications. This approach allows keeping independent the PSAPs/E112 call centers and the location technology. Of course, at the end the service quality level depends on the location technology (and the more precise is the location of the victim, the more efficient will be the rescue service) but to deploy the service, no assumption is required on the location technology used and the technology can evolves in parallel without modifying the PSAP infrastructure.
This is very important to leave the following dead-end:
1) Before to equip the PSAP, authorities are waiting the trade-off analyses and implementation of accurate location techniques
2) The location providers (usually telecom operators) are waiting that PSAP be equipped before providing accurate location.
That is the reason why one of the key stone of emergency handling improvement is currently the modernization of PSAPs with the introduction of automatic location of emergency call also for mobile phones. Standardization and call center technology are ready. Political will must trigger this improvement.
Grégoire Duchâteau , ALCATEL SSD, SCORE Technical Manager
(http://www.score112.org)
EENA in France... a further step towards "national champions"
After have announced "EENA Italy" in the previous newsletter EENA is proud to introduce to our readers another national 112 Champion. Pierre Salmona, member of EENA and working as consultant in Paris and Marseille, France started to work at the national level to promote EENA activities. French organizations may contact him for specific request.
EENA is still open to contribute with "national 112 champions", do not hesitate to contact Olivier PAUL-MORANDINI if you are interested to contribute to it in your country.
EENA is planning in both countries (France and Italy) a national conference with stakeholders in the next months. More information will be available in the next 112 Newsletter issue.
Contact in France: Pierre Salmona
Contact in Italy: Marco Cherri
News statutes for EENA
In order to allow its member organizations to be represented in a board of Directors, EENA has been working on new statutes that will be soon available in English.
EENA and the European Ombudsman
EENA and the media
"Encore + Libres" talk show, France2, France (9157KB)Some interesant links
EENA was there
12th April "RESUSCITATION : EVIDENCE DE SCIENCE EN 2005", Réseau Iris, Erasme Hospital, Brussels, Belgium
Read EENA's presentation (1352KB)7th April Visiting "Gobierno di Navarra" in Pamplona, Spain
Other pages