Advanced Mobile Location Technology now throughout Australia.

Triple Zero receives up to 27,000 calls nationally every day, around 78% of these calls originate from a mobile phone, so you can imagine how critical it is to determine an accurate location. In the past calling from an unknown road, or from parks, beaches or farms would cause delays, as a call may be anywhere between a number of kilometers rather than a matter of meters with this new technology

Emergency operators can now pinpoint the exact location of Triple Zero calls from a mobile phone following the rollout of Advanced Mobile Location technology.

In fact, AML is capable of providing a caller’s location within a 5-meter radius outdoors and a 25-meter radius indoors. Based on deployments of this technology in other countries, most calls (about 85%) will provide the location

All users with an upgraded Android or iPhone handset can access this lifesaving technology. AML technology assists emergency services—fire, police or ambulance—to pinpoint the exact location of Triple Zero callers. The technology allows mobile phones to send precise location coordinates when a call to Triple Zero is made.

Advanced Mobile Location technology lies dormant on capable smartphones until activated by a triple zero call. It will work automatically with Android phones version 4.1 or higher with Google Play Services installed. If you are using an iPhone users can ensure their devices are running iOS14.3 or later in order to have access to this service.

The new technology has already helped locate emergency callers. One was a high-speed vehicle crash in rural Victoria. As you can imagine it is common for a caller to be unaware of the name of the road on which they are traveling, and so with this event, AML, using the GPS data, given the location to within five meters, which was an outstanding outcome

In another case, a caller had been trampled by a horse and was unable to provide a road-based location.

For people without AML-capable mobile phones can install an app called Emergency+ on their phones to allow them to provide location details if they need to call triple zero.

Gavin Howard