PUBLIC SAFETY DISPATCH SYSTEMS AROUND THE WORLD - 1999

Public Safety Dispatch Systems Around The World - 1999

Note - PSAP = Public Safety Answering Point - when you dial 911 in the USA, the first person that you speak to is the PSAP - the PSAP can either take your info or transfer you to a Secondary PSAP. If your call has been incorrectly routed by the telephone system, the first PSAP may transfer you to a second PSAP.

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AUSTRALIA

000 is the emergency telephone number in Australia. All 000 calls are answered by telephone company operators who connect the caller to the appropriate regional fire, police, or ambulance dispatch center. Each state operates statewide dispatch systems or regional dispatch systems. Some smaller fire services maintain telephone nets and paging systems to receive calls directly from the public and bypassing the 000 system. Radio systems operate at 78Mhz, 154Mhz, and 460Mhz. (1999)

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CANADA

New Brunswick - Province wide E911 was implemented in 1998. ?5 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) posts are the 911 PSAPs. Unknown how local dispatch is attained. Fire units operate at 168Mhz and 414Mhz.

Nova Scotia - E911 was recently fully implemented (1998). E911 calls are received at RCMP Truro, RCMP Halifax, RCMP Sidney, RCMP Yarmouth, and Valley Communications in Kingsville (a privately run E911 PSAP). Fire calls (the caller or the details) are forwarded to regional fire dispatch centers - typically there is 1 fire dispatch center per county. Ambulance calls are forwarded to the province wide ambulance dispatch center in Halifax. Province wide fire mutual aid freqs are 153.83 and 151.745R. The older 7 digit emergency telephone numbers are being phased out (some of the older fire department emergency numbers are forwarded directly to the fire dispatch centers at this time - 5/99).

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FRANCE

I believe that there is one fire dispatch center per county/department in France and they relay calls to local fire stations via computer. There are ?87 departments/counties in France. Dedicated regional and national fire radio channels are available. Mobile units operate in the 70Mhz range with UHF portable radios. (1999)

For a listing of French fire and emergency radio channels please see �French fire radio channels�

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ISRAEL

Seperate dispatch centers serve the police, fire, and ambulance units. Fire dispatch centers are located at major fire stations. Fire units use radio frequencies at 164Mhz. There are some nationwide fire radio frequencies. Police units use radio freqs between 158Mhz and 161 Mhz and 860Mhz trunked. Ambulances operate at 164Mhz.

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JAPAN

118 is the telephone number to call for fire or ambulance service. There are 600 fire departments in Japan and they provide all of the public emergency ambulance service in the nation.

Tokyo Fire Department - Two dispatch centers control all fire department units in Tokyo. The dispatch center at Fire Dept HQ controls the urbanized area, and the dispatch center at the Tama Division HQ controls the units in the mountainous Tama suburban area. Each division has two radio channels and UHF portable radios are used. Citywide and nationwide fire mutual aid channels are available. Each fire unit has at least one portable radio and command cars have data links to the dispatch centers. (1998)

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NETHERLANDS

112 is the nationwide emergency telephone number. Calls to 112 from non-mobile (fixed) phones go to a regional 112 call sorting center where a operator will ask the caller what village or city they are in and what sevice they require. The operator will then connect the caller to the appropriate regional police, fire, or ambulance dispatch center.

The Rotterdam Regional 112 Call Sorting Center is located in the same room as the Rotterdam Police dispatch center. Within the next 5 years, the national governmentt is requiring all 112, poolice, fire, and ambulance dispatch centers to merge at the regional level.

Emergency calls from mobile phones are answered at the Country Highway Police HQ in Driebergen near Utrecht. There, calltakers take the details of an incident and then relay the details to the appropriate regional dispatch center.

A special phone system connects all government buildings, police stations, fire stations, and hospitals. This phone system is entirely seperate from the normal public telephone system.

All volunteer firefighters are equipped with pagers for radio dispatch purposes. Frequencies in the 166Mhz range are used. Fulltime firefighters are dispatched via radio monitors or via pagers. In Rotterdam, firefighters on the road are dispatched via pagers. If the firefighters are in their stations, they are alerted via the same pager tones which turn on their station lights and activate audible signalling devices. (1999)

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NEW ZEALAND

Major changes are occurring in 1999 in New Zealand. The fire dispatch centers have been consolidated into the 3 police dispatch centers. Southcomm is at ?Auckland - CenComm is at ?Wellington - NorComm is at XXXXX. The fire radio systems are moving from 100Mhz AM to 76Mhz FM to join the police radio systems. 111 is the nationwide emergency telephone number which is answered by telephone company operators. Callers are then forwarded to the appropriate fire or police dispatch center. Please see the New Zealand file on this website for further information.

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PORTUGAL

Regional 112 centers relay calls to local fire stations which each have 1 dispatcher on duty.

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SWEDEN

Nineteen 112 centers receive all 112 calls in Sweden. ALI and ANI is used. The 112 centers are located at Stockholm, Uppsala, Eskilstuna, Norrkopig, Jonkopig, Vaxjo, Visby, Malmo, Halmstad, Gotenburg, Falkopig, Karlstad, Orebro, Vasteras, Falun, Gavie, Sundsvall, Skelleftea, and Ostersund. For a complete listing of all the 112 centers ,and the fire departments that they dispatch, please go to �Swedish Public Safety�

Fire departments use simplex radio frequencies at 78Mhz and 79Mhz. There are several nationwide radio freqs in addition to the local freqs. 5 tone CCIR signalling is used on the local frequencies. Most portable radios use simplex channels at 430Mhz for communications at emergency scenes. Some senior officers have portable radios at 70Mhz.

In the Stockholm area, the city police use 12 UHf channels with 1 transmit site per channel and 3 or 4 satellite receiver sites per channel. Each police officer on duty has a UHF portable radio. Suburban police departments have one 79Mhz radio channel each with 1 transmit site per channel with 2 or 3 receiver sites. Some of the urban police cars have 70Mhz radios for use when assisting suburban units.

Ambulances in the Stockholm area have GPS units which feed their real-time location information to map displays at the dispatch center. Police and fire units do not have this capability at this time. (1999)

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UNITED KINGDOM

999 is the emergency telephone number in the UK. All 999 calls are answered by telephone operators who connect the caller to the appropriate regional police, fire, or ambulance control center. All public safety forces are regionalized at the county or multicounty level except for the City of London Police. (1999) Please see �this web site� or here for a list of all the dispatch centers in the UK.

Police units are dispatched from centralized control rooms - all officers carry UHF portable radios. The vast majority of police officers do not carry guns. The typical patrol car is a sub-compact. "Area cars" carry two officers and are full sized sedans. Highway patrol cars do traffic enforcement on highways and city streets.

Fire radio systems use AM repeaters at 70MHz and simplex FM portable radios at 457Mhz. Ambulance Services use 166Mhz FM repeaters. Ambulances crews have UHF portables with vehicle mounted repeaters to link to the VHF channels. Highway patrol cars operate at 155Mhz in AM and FM mode. Small police cars do not have mobile radios. Larger "area" cars have mobile radios and the officers have UHF portables.(5/99)

Compiled - 4/15/99 by Peter Szerlag

Last Updated - 5/2/99 - 5/8/99 (Sweden) - 8/5/99 (New Zealand)

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