Emergency telephone

As a rule, such phones are installed on the street, most often along highways, but are also found in other places where dangerous situations are most likely to occur, for example, at subway stations, and in the USA - on the territory of university campuses . Usually they have a bright color: yellow, orange, red.
Emergency telephones rarely have a standard button keyboard (0–9), more often there are fewer buttons, it happens that they are not numbered but signed, and there are devices that have a single button, by pressing which you can contact the operator who will help in solving any an emergency by calling the necessary emergency services.
Many such devices have a sign indicating where it is located, or a code. If the caller does not know where he is or is in such a state of shock that he is not able to answer this question, then the operator will ask the subscriber to look at this plate and tell him the data from it.

As mentioned above, emergency telephones are usually located along highways. It is not known where and when such devices were installed for the first time, but one of the first undisputed cases dates back to 1966, when such phones were installed along one of the highways of Western Australia . The author of the idea was a certain Alan Harman, an employee of a security company. According to his plan, such devices were to be installed on the Perth highway every 160 meters (0.1 miles ). Removing the handset automatically connected the caller to the emergency operator, who, after listening to the subscriber, sent the necessary service to the place ^[1] .

In the UK, orange emergency telephone numbers are located on every major (prefixed A in the name) highway in the country every 1.6 kilometers (1 mile).

In the late 1960s, emergency telephones appeared in Vienna ( Austria ). According to the data for 2016, there are 125 of them left, from which there are an average of five calls per day, with most of the calls coming from refugees who just wanted to find out where they are or call a taxi ^[2] .

In the 1970s, emergency telephones appeared on some highways of Southern California (USA), they were installed every 400 meters (0.25 miles).

In 1976, emergency telephones appeared on the Melbourne Highway ^[3] .

On Italian roads of emergency telephone numbers, painted in yellow, are installed every two kilometers. Also, every two kilometers, emergency telephone numbers, painted in black and white, are located on major highways in Germany and Austria ^[4] .

The advent and widespread use of cell phones around the world has greatly reduced the demand for stationary roadside phones in general, and emergency communications in particular ^[5] . In many cities around the world, such phones have ceased to be serviced and, if they have not been dismantled, thus they have become abandoned, inoperative. In California, in 2001, only about 98 thousand calls were made from emergency roadside phones. In 2010, this number was reduced by 80%, to 20.1 thousand calls per year, that is, on average, one call from one device per month. At the same time, the cost of servicing the aggregate of these devices in, for example, the Region of San Francisco Bay Area is $ 1.7 million per year ^[6] .

Emergency telephones can be found at the ends of bridges, near cliffs and cliffs, where suicides are often committed. In England, for example, the charity is the initiator of the installation of such devices in such places. They install emergency phones on the beaches or just along the coast, where people often swim or go to sea on light boats, despite the ban on doing this in this particular place. In the UK, coastal emergency telephones have a direct connection with the ^[7] , which saves dozens of seconds, since it does not require additional operator inquiries, switching and connections with the necessary emergency service.

An emergency telephone is built into some car models: it makes a call to the rescue service if the car sensors report an accident (airbags have worked), even if people inside cannot call themselves ^[8] .

In some cities around the world, emergency phones are installed in the most lively and / or criminogenic poorly lit areas, where passers-by do not particularly feel their own security in the dark ^[9] .

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  United Kingdom ( , Wales )

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  Hungary

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  Germany (a suburb of Munich )

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  Hong Kong

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  Spain ( Igualada , Anoya , Barcelona , Catalonia )

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  China ( Park )

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  Netherlands

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  Russia ( Moscow Metro , Technopark Station)

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  USA ( New York )

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  USA ( Park )

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  Ukraine ( Odessa )

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  France ( Beaulieu-sur-Mer , Beausoleil , Nice , Alpes-Maritimes , Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur

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  France ( 14th arrondissement of Paris )

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  Czech Republic ( Prague-Troy - Bubenech tunnel)

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  South Africa

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  South Korea ( Seoul Metro )

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  Japan

• Emergency phone numbers
• Phone station

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