Towards next generation system architecture for emergency services

Abstract

European Union has decided that all emergencies can be reported to authorities by European citizens by calling 112 or sending a text message to 112. Distributing warnings and alerts of authorities to citizens currently happens through national TV and radio channels, but telecom networks are also used now in some countries for this purpose. During the last ten years there have been attempts to develop new system architectures for various emergency service provision phases. Some of them are already deployed in special cases, like in ambulance services. Multimedia emergency alert messages can be delivered to citizens over fixed and mobile telecom networks and commercial systems are already in operation. Emergency service delivery has been computer supported for long time at emergency centers. In this paper we will review the current situation primarily in Europe and discuss what issues a novel architecture design for the emergency calls/messages and emergency warnings and alerts should address. The issue is mainly how to utilize better accurate positioning and wireless networks for these tasks. The usability of global social media applications for emergency service provisioning is also considered. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.