On June 28, 2023, the Jelgava city 112 contact center of the State Fire and Rescue Service was solemnly opened, which is the next of the European Regional Development Fund's project "Unified contact center platform to support the work of operative services and the delivery of public services" implementation support stages. The first contact center located in Cēsis city was opened in September 2022.
The grand opening of the 112 contact center was attended by Mr. Māris Kučinskis, the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Jānis Grīnbergs, Deputy Head of the State Fire and Rescue Service, Ms. Ramona Innusa, the Director of Provision State Agency as well as other guests.
Mr. Māris Kučinskis, the Minister of the Interior emphasizes: "We all live in the age of information and communication. The speed of news transmission can save a life, prevent a disaster and ultimately save taxpayers money. The speed of response and the ability of the various services to cooperate is entirely dependent on the information they receive from the contact centers”.
"In the event of any kind of accident, seconds are important, so we continuously improve the quality of our service in order to obtain additional seconds. Technologically, at one point we realized that without significant improvements and changes to the call processing system received at the 112 call center, it is no longer possible to obtain seconds. Therefore after evaluating the experience of other countries, a decision was made several years ago to move towards the implementation of a unified contact center platform, which would speed up and improve the availability of operational services provided to the public, as well as ensure the functionality of a unified contact center in the country. We are still continuing active work on testing and improving the new system ," said Mr. Jānis Grīnbergs, Deputy Head of the State Fire and Rescue Service.
After receiving information about the event, the resource management center of each operational institution will send the resources of their institution to the event and attract others if they are needed, etc. The unified resource management system of operational institutions will also ensure a quick mutual exchange of information about events and resource management – in online mode all involved operational services will be able to follow the development of events.
It is expected that the complete transition to the new system in Latvia will take place in 2023.
The State Fire and Rescue Service, the State Police, the State Border Guard, the Emergency Medical Aid Service and the Information Center of the Ministry of the Interior participate in the project.
