Romania tests new emergency call tracking system

Romania’s Special Telecommunication Service (STS) has been testing since the beginning of this year a new 112 emergency call tracking system in the Bucharest-Ilfov area, Stiri.tvr.ro reported. With this system, called AML (Advanced Mobile Location), the authorities can locate the callers in just a few seconds, with extremely high precision.

STS specialists say that localization through the AML system is reduced to several meters, depending on the phone's signal strength.

Once the testing in Bucharest is completed, the system will be implemented nationwide.

The Romanian authorities decided to improve the 112 emergency system last summer, after the murder case in the town of Caracal brought to light the fact that the 112 system in Romania can’t provide an exact location of the caller. One of the victims, 15-year-old Alexandra Macesanu, managed to call 112 one day after she was kidnapped but the authorities intervened too slowly and Alexandra was killed by her kidnapper. A few weeks later, the government presented a set of 14 measures aimed at making the 112 system more efficient.

More than 11.3 million calls were made last year to the 112 single emergency number in Romania, 1.43 million fewer compared to 2018, and almost half of them (48.1%) were fake (prank calls), according to STS, local News.ro reported.

Most of the emergency calls were transferred to the Ambulance service – 55.4%, the Police – 22.9%, the emergency rescue service ISU-SMURD – 16.9%, and the Gendarmerie – 4.1%. Most calls were made around 19:00, while the lowest number of emergency calls was usually registered around 04:00.

Under normal working conditions, STS operators took the most calls on August 12, 2019 - 37,617, and of these 21,070 were emergencies (56.01%).

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