For calls in the event of violence, theft, fire, accidents... citizens in Montenegro have at their disposal the unique European number 112 and the national emergency service numbers 122, 123, 124 and 129, but only for 112 is there a possibility to quickly and easily determine the location from which the call was sent.
In the Operational and Communication Center (OKC) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MUP) for the number 112, from 2022, advanced location technology, Advanced Mobile Location (AML), is used, as is also used by countries in the European Union.
In that year, it became possible to locate users of Android devices. A year later, as the Agency for Electronic Communications and Postal Services (EKIP) told "Vijesti", it was possible to recognize users of mobile phones using the iOS operating system (iPhone).
The initiative to locate callers in a similar way was sent earlier from the Podgorica Protection and Rescue Service, but, as the former commander claims in a statement to "Vijesti" Goran Janković, were not approved, so the location to which the firefighters-rescuers are directed is determined based on what the caller says.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Police Administration (UP) did not answer the questions of "Vijesti" about the possibility of determining the location of the callers and how to achieve the best possible contact with the police.
After the tragedy in Cetinje on January 1, the Police Administration announced that their officers did not immediately arrive at the scene because they were initially notified of the wrong place. Acting Director of UP Lazar Scepanovic at the conference after the event, he said that the call was made to the Cetinje police at 17.26:XNUMX p.m., when a citizen informed the police that a firearm had been used in a tavern and that there were several injured. In the communication with the person who reported the incident, as he explained at the time, there was incomplete information indicating the location of the crime in the town of Bajice, to which two patrols and an elder were sent:
"And when they arrived at 17.31:XNUMX p.m., they determined that it was not the scene of the event. On this occasion, following a citizen's report, the police were sent to the wrong location."
As Šćepanović announced at the time, a review of the surveillance cameras established that at that moment, i.e. at 17.26:XNUMX p.m., Aco Martinović already killed four people on the spot...
In the tragedy in Cetinje, Martinović killed 13, wounded three people and sentenced himself.
The police received three reports from citizens that day. Apart from the fact that the first call was sent to the Cetinje police, the MUP and UP did not answer whether it was to the local, emergency national number for the police 122, or whether one of the calls was also sent to OKC 112...
Emergency numbers
In Montenegro, in the case of events that require an immediate response from the authorities, citizens have at their disposal the unique European number 112 and national numbers - for the police it is 122, for the protection and rescue service 123, 124 is the number on which citizens can call an ambulance, while 129 is called for assistance at sea.
Out of all of them, the citizens are best acquainted with the number of the police, according to a survey conducted for the needs of EKIP in 2022. In that year, in addition to the number for assistance at sea, citizens were "significantly less" familiar with the number 112, a unique the European emergency number, which is called to contact emergency medical services, firefighters and police...
Compared to the year when the survey was conducted, a year later the number of citizens who made calls to 112 increased. In the report on the work of EKIP for 2023, it is stated that OKC received 292.132 calls during that year, i.e. 32,65 percent more than in 2022.
112 is the only emergency number available in all European Union (EU) member states. It was introduced to enable citizens to have access to all services in the event of an emergency, such as fire, police and health services.
The obligation of operators of public telephone networks to provide all service users with free calls to the number 112 for calls in emergency cases is prescribed by the Law on Electronic Communications.
In October 2014, the Rulebook on the unique European number 112 was adopted, which, among other things, prescribes the method of accurately and reliably determining the location of the caller of the number.
Accuracy of 50 meters in 87 percent of cases
In the reports of the Agency for Electronic Communications, it is stated that the operators have started submitting location data since 2016. It is also stated that over the years there have been problems with the application of the Rulebook, in the part related to the accuracy of data on the located user. According to the Rulebook, the time in which information about the caller's location is delivered for 95 percent of calls, that is, SMS messages to the number 112 must be shorter than 30 seconds.
"Due to problems with the application of the Rulebook... activities were started in 2019, and during 2020 and 2021, activities were continued to implement the AML method of locating callers of the number 112, which provides high accuracy for new generation Android phones and IP phones," he states. in the 2023 report.
Using the AML method, the user can be located with an accuracy of 50 meters for 87 percent of the obtained locations.
EKIP told "Vijesta" that the testing of the AML method for Android users was successfully completed in 2022, and a year later for iPhone (iOS) mobile device users.
According to EKIP data, in 2023, more than 70 percent of mobile phones in Montenegro were Android or iPhone (iOS).
According to research conducted last year regarding the satisfaction of users of electronic communication services, 88,7 percent of the population owns mobile phones that can be used to access the Internet. Of these, almost half (48,2 percent) support 5G.
These data, as they state, justify the introduction of the AML method.
EKIP explains that, according to the Regulation on the single European number 112, location is the operator's obligation. So far, the introduction of AML has not caused any higher costs for them:
"The introduction of AML caused almost no costs for mobile operators, and bearing in mind how important it is to determine the user's location as accurately as possible for the efficient work of rescue services (MUP, Mountain Rescue Service, Emergency Medical Services, Fire Service...) in order to rescue human lives, the decision to implement the AML was justified", said EKIP.
Other users are located according to the old system.
"By means of which the accuracy of locating varies and ranges from a few tens of meters to the level of the base station where the user is currently connected (this can go up to several kilometers). The accuracy depends on the density and layout of the base stations, so for urban and suburban areas, the accuracy is higher (the density of the base stations is higher, so the accuracy is also higher), said EKIP.
They also added that achieving the accuracy of locating users who do not own a smartphone would significantly increase the operator's costs, and that it would be unjustified for them from an economic point of view:
"Because in rural and mountainous areas, where calls for help most often come from, there would be large investments, and from an economic point of view, they would not have any additional benefit, but the construction of new base stations would be an expense for them with little or almost no increase in income".
Centralization or to acquire equipment
When asked by "Vijesti" how other emergency numbers - 122, 123, 124, 129 - could use the same location technology, EKIP said that the Law on Electronic Communications now stipulates that the location is sent only to the number 112, and that there is appropriate technical equipment for this on the OKC 112 side.
"Other emergency services should be centralized, and they should acquire the appropriate equipment that can process the location sent by the operator, which would be unprofitable for Montenegro. So the best solution would be for everything to go through 112, and for the other emergency services to have appropriate user equipment that can receive the location forwarded to them by 112, but all this is a matter of the organization of the other emergency services".
MUP in 2013, during the mandate Raško Konjevića, formed a working group with the task of reviewing the possibilities of unifying the centers that use the numbers 112, 122, 123, 124 and 129 within the single OKC 112.
Rescuers from Podgorica asked to be able to locate them
Former commander of the Podgorica Protection and Rescue Service, Goran Janković, told "Vijesti" that during his mandate, an initiative was launched to grant them the ability to locate people who report a certain event, but that they did not encounter cooperation from the Directorate for Protection and Rescue of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, within which OKC 112 is located.
"They were not willing to share the system with the Podgorica service. Despite several requests and initiatives, the 112 system remained closed to all elements of the protection and rescue system, although several million euros were dominantly procured and paid for the protection services and the protection and rescue system," he said.
As he added, after that they applied for the international project CommandD and in cooperation with the partner countries Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia received about 60 thousand euros of funds and equipment for the introduction of a system for early fire detection, command in crisis situations, the cadastre of all buildings from of vital importance for the protection system, fire monitoring... and among other things, the detection and detection of the location of the caller of the accident.
For this purpose, according to Janković, equipment and rooms for the command room were purchased and tablet computers were purchased for the installation of the system for determining the caller's location.
"The idea was that when a citizen reports a house fire and the like from the scene, the location is determined and directly sent to a tablet device in official vehicles, where firefighters-rescuers would quickly and easily reach the scene of the accident," explained Janković.
The project, he claims, was terminated after his dismissal.
Janković joined the Protection Service from the Communal Police in 2019, and was in office until 2025. However, his mandate ended in October 2024, when the then mayor Olivera Injac issued a decision on his dismissal.
The Capital City Protection Service is headed by Zdravko Blečić.
Rescued hikers, victims of violence...
In 2023, the European Emergency Number Association (EENA) published a report on the use of the AML method of locating users in 30 countries in Europe.
Each country was sent a questionnaire about when they use AML technology, for which operating systems (Android, iOS, Harmony...), the countries were able to list all emergency service numbers, except 112, for which they use AML, they were asked about the regulation , but also give examples of how AML helped them in practice.
Bulgarians cited several examples - cooperation with the Mountain Rescue Service in cases of domestic violence. In one of the examples, they state that in the summer of 2022 they found a woman and a man who reported that they had been lost for four hours in the Vitoša Nature Park and that they were unable to find the path. As they stated, it was raining heavily, and the people were wet, exhausted and scared, and could not find the path.
"The 112 operator set up a conference call with GSS and provided them with AML data, with which they were able to locate them...".
In one case of domestic violence, they say that the woman called 112 to file a report.
"When the operator asked for the address, her husband attacked. Screams were heard and the connection was cut. Thanks to the coordinates obtained through AML, the police determined the location and rescued the woman...".
At the time of the report, AML was only available for Android users in Montenegro. Just like today, only for the emergency number 112. This is also the only information for Montenegro.
At the time of the creation of the report, Slovenia, North Macedonia and Croatia already enabled the location of users of both Android and iOS devices.
In Switzerland, this locating system is also enabled for other emergency numbers in that country, and in addition to Android and iOS devices, they can also locate HarmonyOS users, who use Huawei phones.
The system for locating the vehicle also works
EKIP also states that testing of the eCall locating system was completed at the beginning of 2021, after which the service was put into operation within OKC 112.
eCall is an emergency call system in vehicles, it involves installing a device in the vehicle that combines GSM and GPS functions and in the event of an accident, based on the signal of the collision sensor and the activation of the airbags, it automatically sends an emergency call to the number 112.
The device's GPS module collects information about the vehicle's position and sends it via the GSM module to the local emergency dispatch center.
One specific case was also recorded in Montenegro and mentioned in the EKIP report for 2023:
"In the middle of 2021, there was one actual eCall call, initiated automatically, during a traffic accident, so OKC immediately notified the local police center with precise information about the location of the accident".
Bonus video:
