Romania's Special Telecom Service STS has been awarded the European prize for the best reform of the national  emergency call system - 112.

Romania landed the prize over other participants across Europe. This is STS's fourth prize, after those in 2009 and 2013 for educational campaigns, and the one in 2011 for outstanding rescue procedures.

A commission made of independent experts analyzed all applications from member states, before submitting them to the vote of the members in the European Emergency Number Association.

The awards ceremony, held earlier this week in Warsaw, was attended by around 350 participants, all representing emergency services, international organization, EU institutions, and solution suppliers. (in picture: General Marcel Opris, Secretary of State and Director of the Special Telecommunications Service of Romania with Dieter Nuessler, Vice-Chair of EENA Advisory Board and Demetrios Pyrros, Chair of EENA Advisory Board)

Awardees from the Czech Republic, Finland, Greece, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and Spain walked off with top honors rewarding their commitment to promote and improve the European emergency number 112.

• The outstanding call taker is from Poland

• The outstanding citizens are 5 children and a journalist from Poland

• The outstanding 112 education initiative came from Greece

• The outstanding emergency call centres are in Moravia, the Czech Republic and in Catalonia, Spain

• The outstanding reform of the national 112 system award went to Romania

• The outstanding rescue was carried out in Finland

• The outstanding emergency services innovation was implemented in Slovenia

The emergency number 112 can be accessed for free from all telephony networks, landline and mobile, and has been active since 2005. In Romania, 112 is the only emergency number managed by the state. When calling this number to report an emergency, the caller is directed to the respective service – ambulance, Police – and their location is also automatically discovered.

The 112 emergency service and STS were recently criticized in Romania after the small plane crash which resulted in two dead and several injured, following a lengthy rescue mission because of a lack of information on the crash site, despite numerous calls to the emergency number.

STS is currently working on an application which will allow users to text 112 and get responses via text as well. The state service is also among the first countries in the EU which has developed the eCall technical solution, which automatically dials the emergency number after a car crash, sending relevant information about the location and car technical data.

editor@romania-insider.com