EU Emergency Services Workshop 201113-15 April 2011, Budapest

Croatia 112 System

Anto Zelid

Assistant Director and Chief Supervisor for 112 System

National Protection and Rescue Directorate, Republic of Croatia

Emergency numbers in Croatia

112 – Public Safety Answering Point

94 – Ambulance - emergency medical help (completely diverted to PSAP – 112 centre)

93 – Fire Brigade (partially integrated-diverted to PSAP– 112 centre)

192 – Police

9155 – Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre

1987 – Croatian Auto-club (HAK) – road assistance

Size of operations (1)

•Republic of Croatia has population of 4.4 million and consists of 20 counties

•Each county has a PSAP – 112 centre, governed by National Protection and Rescue Directorate (NPRD)

•The 112 budget is part of NPRD budget (NPRD budget is an element of state’ budget)

•Operators in the PSAP - 112 centre are in charge of emergency call taking and coordination of response units (Police, Ambulance, Fire Brigade, Mountain Rescue Teams etc.)

Size of operations (2)

Croatia - 112 model

The elements of another models-4 centers:•The two centers have firefighting coordinator in the same control rooms•The one center has firefighting brigade on the direct link as dispatching unit•The one center has ambulance call-taking unit on the direct link as dispatching unit

16 centers have pure “Model 2”

Level of emergency service integration within control rooms

• The 112 centers are communication and coordination point for all emergency situations

• Emergency services provide feedback on the end of cases that received from the 112 center

• The coordinators of fire brigade affairs, in two cases, are in the 112 center

• Clients of the same 112 system - (the same sw and the same data base): one fire brigade and one ambulance center

112 access

• PSAPs accessible by landline and mobile phones.

• Possibility to access 112 center using fax or email getting number or email address from web portal of NPRD

• IVR feature exists but not in use (Interactive voice response)

• Mechanism for managing alerts raised by automatic systems (e.g. sensors, flood forecasting systems) exists but it is not provided

Call-handling figures

• Call answering time............4,2 sec.

• Duration of conversation between citizens and 112 call-taker…………< 1 min

• Average intervention time............e.g. EMS : 8 min

• Is intervention time specified in legislation..............No

• Or anywhere else such as in the organization guidelines: Ministry of health-level of 5 years period ambition : urban area -10 min, rural area 20 min (for 80% of calls)

• How many call takers in average are available at a given time…………25%

Call-handling aspects (1)

•An operator (call-taker) does his job in accordance to the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). This means that each emergency request (situation, threat) needs an appropriate reaction, described in SOP.

•Very first step is to find out a type of emergency and location, what determines an action plan (who is doing what and where)

•After cross-connecting caller in emergency to an appropriate emergency service, operator is staying in conference call and observing situation for the purpose of alerting some other emergency service, might be needed in actual emergency

•Call taker is not entitled to act as dispatcher but only as a coordinator of emergency services from communication viewpoint

Call-handling aspects (2)

•The permanent education, training and evaluation

Program:

•Introduction, kick-off

•Communications' skills

•Stress management, techniques for stress reduction

•Simulation exercises

•Analysis, Conclusions, Guidelines

Multilingual calls

English German Italian Chek Slovak Hungarian Another Total

1615 557 2857 172 82 130 105 5519

Number of calls: 2010

Accessibility for people with disabilities

•Unfortunately, for the time being, access to PSAP centers is not ensured for users with disabilities

•In the absence of full availability of 112 service for disabled users, we apply provisional solution when 112 service is reachable via SMS but, unfortunately, not free of charge.

•We are aware that such solution does not meet requirements imposed by EU but it is only temporary solution.

•We would like to stress our commitment in carrying out obligations imposed by Directive 2002/22/EC that will be accomplished as soon as possible, depending on the networks adjustments

Caller-location (landline and mobile)

• Pull : After receiving the mobile call (in the county), the system asks for location parameters from mobile service provider (The Mobile Telecom)

• After 10 – 15 sec caller location is shown on a GIS map

• Accuracy is approx. 1 km (base station, not GPS)

• PSAP (NPRD) bears the costs only for infrastructure ( NPRD Private Network) but location base services (LBS) are free of charge (According to „The Regulation on the Single European emergency number”)

• We have opportunity to present location on the GIS map giving some defined address, but it is not associated with landline caller yet

• It is not possible to automatically forward the caller-location to other PSAPs if needed

• EU roaming location functioning (citizens calling with a mobile phone using a foreign subscription - in the county)

Public warning for citizens

•Public warning system is obsolete, based on a large scale and wide variety of sirens

•Remote control is based on leased or subscriber lines (PSTN: Public Switch Telephone Network)

•Maintenance is expensive due to obsolete technologies applied in system

•Warning of citizen is based on siren signals and instructions for citizens (e.g., Switch on radio or TV)

•New Law on protection and rescue will enforce industry (high risk installation) and other public stakeholders (acoustically isolated) to participate in public warning by warning citizen in their vicinity or dissemination warning signal received from PSAP in their facilities

Challenge, projects and/or reforms

•Modernization of 112 System (continued) 112

•112 by SMS

•Modernization of Public Warning System

•PROFFESIONAL MOBILE RADIO (PMR) based on the TETRA standard

•Croatian e-Call pilot project

The contact details to the audience

National Protection and Rescue Directorate, Republic of Croatia,

10 000 Zagreb, Nehajska 5

Tel. +385 1 36 50 021

Fax. +385 1 36 50 017

E-mail: anto.zelic@duzs.hr

www.duzs.hr

Q&A