The government has too little ‘control and direction’ on the emergency number 112, which last year eight faults could take place. This is evident from a study of two public sector organisations. In the meantime, measures are taken to reduce the risk of interference to reduce.
From the research of Agentschap Telecom, and the Inspection of Safety and Justice shows that the government is too little ‘control and direction’ on the emergency number 112 and that a good overview of the 112-system is missing. There is also insufficient consultation between the various government agencies with 112 and there is no clear overview of contracts with providers, who provide services to 112 deliver. Although the research infrastructure of 112 ‘robust’, and there is no one who keeps an eye on whether the system as a whole functions. There is a question of ‘organisational fragmentation’, write the researchers.
In total there were last year eight failures, which according to the researchers, no direct relationship with each other. There is no specific weak place in the 112-network: the failures occurred at multiple places in the infrastructure. In most failures, there was a technical failure; in two cases there was a human error. It is remarkable that one major failure, that one hour lasted, the cause is not found. Many of the failures took place at the time that maintenance was in progress; according to the researchers, is “too much reliance on redundancy’.
With one failure, there were no negative consequences for the 112-callers: at interference-were people connected to the relevant emergency service, but that was as a result of the failure a labour-intensive task for the 112 employees. The other seven failures were there negative consequences: people could not connect with the central monitoring station. In the most serious interference continued to 214 calls to the emergency number went unanswered. The social consequences fell according to the researchers. Earlier it became known that during one of the jams, a resident of Amsterdam, died, but it is not to say, or that as a result of the failure has happened.
The largest part of the failures took place after minister Ivo Opstelten of Security and Justice said that a failure such as that of 20 June would never be the case. That jam lasted 6 hours and 18 minutes. After the promise of Cost, there were several hours of failures, in which a total of 126 phone calls to 112 unanswered remained. It is striking that minister Opstelten wrote that the failure of June was the result of the ‘failure to follow internal procedures’. According to the researchers, the problem lies precisely in those procedures.
The researchers recommend that the ministry of Security and Justice to the management of the 112 system to attract. It should also be examined where the infrastructure of the 112 system can be simplified: now it is very complex, find the researchers. KPN, a large part of the infrastructure of 112, is recommended to the 112-system monitoring and maintenance can be better prepared for. Last year, it appeared that maintenance was not always reported.
Minister Opstelten says the recommendations to take over, and in a written response, the ministry let you know that there are already several improvements have been carried out. So is the redundancy of the network is improved, several bugs in the 112-application patched and are in the control rooms, measures taken to ensure that certain failures have less impact. In addition, the monitoring improved.
