Sweden, Norway launch joint emergency communication system

Swedish and Norwegian emergency rescue services joined forces Wednesday in order to collaborate during accidents or other incidents along the Scandinavian nations' border.

On Wednesday, as part of the launch, an exercise took place involving a feigned bus accident on a highway that connects Norway and Sweden. Police officers, ambulance drivers, firemen and others took part in the drill.

As of March next year, all servicemen who use the Swedish and Norwegian emergency communications systems, called Rakel and Nodnett, will be able to join the new service.

Sweden's minister for home affairs Anders Ygeman said that connecting Sweden's Rakel and Norway's Nodnett "enables collaborations between police authorities, ambulances, emergency rescue services and fire brigades in the two countries. It makes coordination during larger events easier and it improves the exchange of information."

Ygeman made the remarks during a ceremony to mark the launch of the collaboration where Norway's minister for justice and public security Anders Anundsen also took part.

Reine Lamkiewicz, a police superintendent in Sweden who works with the Rakel system, told news agency TT that he hopes the Swedish-Norwegian collaboration will improve the response to traffic accidents as well as efforts to clamp down on drugs and other work.

Lamkiewicz said some operations carried out in the past would have been more successful had a cross-border connected system been in place.

Previously, staff members had to use their cell phones to talk to colleagues across the border.

Alternatively, one could contact the communication center in one's own country where staff members in turn would contact the communication center in the other country, which would then get in touch with individual officers.

The new system is meant significantly to speed up the communication process. Endit