About a tenth of the 788261 emergency calls received in the Hessian control centers under the national number 110 last year were not accepted.

This emerges from the written answer from Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU) to a request from State Parliament member Stefan Müller (FDP).

The Union politician does not see the causes on the part of the police.

"The reasons include termination on the part of the caller, incorrect calls, the misuse of emergency call facilities and line-related interruptions due to disruptions in the mobile and fixed network," the minister wrote.

Ewald Hetrodt

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung in Wiesbaden.

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Incoming emergency calls would be answered as quickly as possible, assessed and processed depending on urgency, Beuth notes.

The fact that this did not apply to several calls on the night of the Hanau attack in February 2020 in the Offenbach police headquarters in Southeast Hesse is due to outdated technology that has since been updated to the new status of the other six police headquarters.

"In an emergency, a minute is an eternity"

The average waiting time for the accepted calls is ten seconds, said Beuth. There is no specific time limit. If a call cannot be accepted within 30 seconds due to an increased volume, the network of control centers receives a signal. After another half a minute, the emergency call will be displayed in a second firmly defined partner control center and can be accepted there, according to the ministry.

The fact that ten percent of the calls came to nothing is “definitely too much,” says Müller. The possible waiting times are also "too long" for him. It could happen that those seeking help would only be forwarded after a minute before they were heard. "In an emergency, a minute is an eternity." It must be ensured that citizens seeking help can reach the emergency number at any time and that their call is answered as quickly as possible.

The member of the state parliament reminds that digital solutions could be helpful in addition to the conventional emergency call system. According to a decision by the Conference of Interior Ministers in 2019, the emergency call app "Nora" should be introduced as an additional tool for calls for help. In his response from the state government to an earlier request from the FDP, Interior Minister Beuth announced that the app was planned to be launched in August this year. But it did not come to that.

According to Müller, therefore, he made another request to the Hessian state government.

In it, the MP asks when the announced app will be available and how the situation in the control centers should be improved.

Interior Minister Beuth also has to make a decision, writes the FDP politician, in which period emergency calls would have to be received by police control centers.