Ministry of Interior

Bulgarian National 112 SystemBulgarian National 112 System

April 28-th, 2010EENA Operations Committee

Legal Framework

•Bulgarian Government issued a Decree №192/09.08.2007, introducing 112 Emergency System.

•Decision of Bulgarian Government from October/2007 defines the stages of implementing 112 Emergency System in Republic of Bulgaria.

•The Law on Electronic Communications handles the requirements to Bulgarian Telecommunication Operators in the process of providing 112 services to Bulgarian and foreign citizens.

•The Law of National Emergency System with a Single European Number 112

•Ministry of Interior Act

•Rules of Implementing the Law on the Ministry of Interior

Architecture model of Bulgarian Architecture model of Bulgarian National 112 SystemNational 112 System

Emergency call handling architecture, recommended by ETSI SR Emergency call handling architecture, recommended by ETSI SR 002 180 V1.1.1 (2003-12) ) – Standard Architecture (I)002 180 V1.1.1 (2003-12) ) – Standard Architecture (I)

System architecture

•Structure of Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) is based on economic regions. According to Bulgarian legislation the country is divided into six economic regions.

•Bulgarian 112 system has 6 call centers, one per economic region. The centers are interchangeable.

•Each center is intended to serve the corresponding economic region.

• The system is 100% homogeneous across the country. Any center can accept calls from any geographical point of the country (including geographical areas outside the corresponding economic regions). The incidents are always served by the same way and that is transparent for the calling citizens. That functionality makes 112 system very flexible in two cases. First if there are no free call takers in one center the calls are automatically redirected to free call takers in another center. Second If one of the call centers is not accessible due to failure, then the calls to that center are automatically redirected to the other ones.

Distribution of the population coverage for the 112 Centers

Planning Region (Center) Population

Region share / total population

South - West Region ( 112 Center Sofia) 2 232 575 27,52%

North - West Region ( 112 Center Montana) 984 324 12,13%

North - Central Region ( 112 Center Ruse) 985 488 12,15%

North - East Region ( 112 Center Varna) 1 071 585 13,21%

South - East Region ( 112 Center Burgas) 1 207 061 14,88%

South - Central Region ( 112 Center Kardzhali) 1 631 249 20,11%

Logical architecture at national level

Architecture at area level

•The authorities supplying emergency services in Bulgaria are as follows :

Ministry of Interior: Police; Fire Brigade service; Civil protection service;

Ministry of Health: Ambulance service;

Ministry of Transport - Marine Administration: Marine rescue service;

Bulgarian Red Cross: Mountain rescue service

•Each service has contact points at geographical area level. There is direct access to 112 centers information system from each contact point of first responders. The registered incidents at 112 centers are automatically distributed to the contact points of first responders, according to geographical location of the incident.

•Republic of Bulgaria has existing specific numbers for each of the three main emergency services – Police, Fire Brigade and Ambulance.

•With the deployment of 112 system, national numbers will be kept but it’s planned to be routed to 112 centers, i.e. old numbers will be available for citizens, along with 112;

Logical architecture at area level

Organizations involved in 112 service

•Emergency case management - software SIEMENS ELS;

•Reports and statistics - software;

•Voice recording. According to the law the records shall be kept for 3 years .

•Uninterruptible power supply;

•Database storage and management (ORACLE);

•Conference calls and expert consulting

•Case classification according to assigned codes

•Telephone switching and calls management - SIEMENS HIPATH

•Multilanguage calls – English, French, German, etc. In case of foreign language call and if the call taker accepting that call doesn’t speak that language, he/she just selects the language and the system automatically redirects the call to a call taker, speaking that language (no matter in which center is that call taker).

System Technology

Deployed systems for:

•GIS containing maps with geographical data for positioning the caller party localization, available in 112 centers immediately on picking up the call (push method).

- landline phones: localization based on periodically updated data base presented by the communication operators.

- mobile phones: localization based on cell id / sector id that is transmitted next to every 112 call.

System Technology

Coverage of the cell, handling a subscriber, at the moment of calling 112

Calling party localization

Statistics

•Approximately 4 million served calls per year 2009 ;

•Average call answering time – less than 4 s. ;

Number of handled calls for 2009

0

50 000

100 000

150 000

200 000

250 000

300 000

350 000

400 000

450 000

I-09 II-009 III-09 IV-09 V-09 VI-09 VII-09 VIII-09 IX-09 X-09 XI-09 XII-09

StatisticsEmergency service actions (cases) initiated by Centers 112 for the period

01.01.2009 – 31.12.2009

Emergency cases distribution for the period 01.01.2009 - 31.12.2009

5%

51%

7%

36%

1%

Civil protection

Emergency medical services(Ambulance)

Fire brigade

Police

Others

Emergency service Absolute number of actions

Number of actions per 1000 inhabitants

Ambulance 145 981 18,2

Police 104 258 13,0

Fire Brigade 20 249 2,5

Civil protection 15 544 1,9

Total actions 286 032 35,6

Citizens Knowledge of 112

According to Eurobarometer :

•In 2009 in Bulgaria 38% of people know that 112 is European Emergency Number

•The proportion of inhabitants who thought of calling the emergency number 112 when confronted with an emergency situation in Bulgaria has increased by more than 7 percentage points from 45% in 2008 to 52% in 2009;

Promotion of 112•In 2007, the start of pilot project was promoted by issuing the 500 000 fliers, posters

and stickers for the emergency services cars.

•In 2008, after full deployment of 112 National Emergency system it was carried out the second mass promotion campaign with radio and TV clip, a documentary film, and printed materials .

•The National information campaign at the area level in the period January 2009 – March 2009 – press conferences at each of the 28-th of the areas, 600 000 fliers, 10 000 Posters “Telephone 112”.

•Information campaign “112 -Your SOS Number” in November 2009 on the project “Bulgarian communication strategy” – covering target group of children, 1200 students, teachers and experts. There were organized round tables, workshops, interviews on theme “What do we know about 112” . There were issued and distributed 18500 fliers, 8500 stickers, 100 posters, 1500 folders и 4000 calendars. The film for 112 was

broadcasted in two National TV channels and banners were published in 4 Internet sites.

112 Emergency System Performance

•Trainings: call-takers have a 1 month theoretical course in a special training center plus 15 days training on live system from educated supervisor. Course materials include application operating manual, in place procedures and protocols.

•Standards: all emergency activities are subject to internal instruction.

•Quality monitoring:

It was developed and implemented a Monitoring and Quality Control forms for evaluation of the performance at 3 levels : Call takers and coordinators, Center 112 and the overall System 112. It includes 2 set of indicators for :

- time performance – working hours, call answering time , priority cases call answering time, cases answered after the 10-th second, total time to serve the case.

- quality of operation – communications skills and politeness, emergency case parameters identification, adequate decision making, capabilities to work with the software applications.

112 Emergency System Development At the beginning of this year experts working group crafted a “Conception about

Development of the National Emergency Call System with a Common European Number 112” (NECSSEN 112). The Conception is a basic document for the organizational and technical development of the system. The main technical aspects based of new technology achievements include:

•More precise mobile phones caller localization

- deploying the service Mobile positioning in each of the telephone operators

- using GPS, which will be standard in tomorrow’s mobile phone

•Implementation of CAD (Computer Aided Dispatching) system of the mobile teams.

•Online access of the mobile teams to Center 112 Database

•Implementation of AVL (Automatic Vehicle Localization) system of the mobile teams

•Access from the people with a disabilities to the services of telephone 112.

112 Emergency System Development •eCall service – option for automatic or manual call generating to tel. 112 in traffic

accidents

•GIS development - actual maps of all settlements with the current status of the important infrastructure objects, introduction of 3D maps etc.

•Receiving video calls.

Thanks for your attention

Mr. Stoyan Gramatikov

e-mail : s.gramatikov@mes.government.bg

Director

Directorate “National 112 System”

Ministry of Interior

Sofia

Bulgaria