New tool helps NZ emergency services locate people at risk

New Zealand’s Next Generation Critical Communications (NGCC) has delivered a new digital tool that will help emergency services to more quickly locate people who may be in danger, enabling them to send help faster.

Around one in five calls to 111 are people calling about someone else who may be missing or considered to be in danger. Thanks to the new Device Location Information (DLI) service, emergency services can now quickly locate the approximate area of the mobile phone of a person where there are grave fears for their health or safety. This streamlined capability is considered a significant improvement on the previous process, which required manual requests to be made to mobile network operators and relied on them having people on call 24/7 to assist.

DLI serves as an extension of the existing Emergency Caller Location Information (ECLI) service, also provided by NGCC, which provides emergency services with the location of a mobile device used to make a 111 call. It can be used by Fire and Emergency New Zealand, Wellington Free Ambulance, Police, and Hato Hone St John; Maritime New Zealand and New Zealand Search and Rescue can also request use of DLI through Police.

“When every second counts, having access to real-time digital technology is a game changer for our emergency services, and for the public’s safety,” said Police Minister Mark Mitchell, who launched the service alongside Associate Police Minister and Associate Health Minister Casey Costello.

“This will be a very useful tool for search and rescue operations, for example when someone is reported missing in the bush. Provided they’re carrying a mobile device that’s switched on and connected to a cellular network, emergency services can use the DLI service to get immediate access to information about the area they are in and send help.”

Costello said the new system will also assist people experiencing health emergencies, noting that the service can help if a call is transferred to an emergency service from another operator.

“For example, if someone on the phone to Healthline falls unconscious and the call drops, then the Device Location Information service can locate the mobile device they were calling from and send this information to ambulance teams,” she said.

In addition to DLI, NGCC has also recently launched the PSN (Public Safety Network) Cellular Network Visibility Service, which brings together data from Spark and One NZ onto one digital platform for emergency services to quickly see whether mobile network outages will impact their ability to use their devices. Set to be highlighted in a presentation at Comms Connect Melbourne next month, the service shows near real-time network coverage and outage information as well as any planned outages for a period of two weeks.

“This new service … will show our emergency operations centres and planners when and where their operations will be impacted by network outages so they can plan around it,” Mitchell said. “This will be particularly useful for planning operations in [the] extreme weather events we will continue to experience in New Zealand.”

In addition to enhancing operational planning capabilities, emergency services will be able to identify optimal locations for deploying portable cellular sites, being delivered by NGCC next year, to ensure they have the coverage needed during critical operations. Once a PSN Cellular Rapid Deployable is operational, its coverage area will be dynamically populated on the PSN Cellular Network Visibility Service.

Image credit: iStock.com/PonyWang