London Fire Brigade May Use Twitter to Receive Emergency Calls

By: Ali Raza  |   December 20th, 2012   |   Mobile Apps, News, Social Media

When it comes to receiving emergency calls, British Telecom handles more than 30 million such calls during a given year. Therefore, considering the sheer volume of calls, the London Fire Brigade has started mulling over whether or not it’s “time to look at new ways for people to report emergencies quickly and efficiently and social media could provide the answer in the future.”

 

TQ has caught word that the London Fire Brigade may allow people to start reporting emergencies through popular micro-blogging website, Twitter. This way they will able to take load off of British Telecom. In addition to this, it will also help the London Fire Brigade to respond more swiftly to an emergency.

 

If this service will be implemented, it would become the first ever 999 emergency Twitter feed in the world through which people could send tweets from their own Twitter accounts to report about a fire or related emergency to London’s Fire Brigade.

 

This suggestion came from the latest “London Safety Plan”, which proposed that fire brigade should start considering how social media like Twitter and others along with mobile apps could be utilised by the general public to report about a fire emergency.

 

As a result of this suggestion, the London Fire Brigade is now looking to work with local Metropolitan Police, Ambulance Service and Government in order to determine how this kind of service could be put into practice.

 

Deputy Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade, Rita Dexter said, “With over a billion people now using Facebook and half a billion using Twitter, it’s quite clear that social media is here to stay. The London Fire Brigade is the biggest fire service in the country and we think it’s important to look into ways to improve how we communicate with the public and how they can get in touch with us.”

 

Usage of Twitter is not new for London Fire Brigade, as the department is already using this social media platform to broadcast details of emergencies they attend. Therefore, there is a high probability that Londoners may see a system to report fire and other emergencies through Twitter.

 

Source: TNW