Lifting borders in the latter part of the 20th century changed our lives in Europe a lot. There is the free
movement of people. On another level, the digital revolution brought us computers, mobile phones
and internet, which have led to information flows that are less and less hindered by borders. And, of
course, most emergency situations do not stop at borders. Yet, as it comes to warning the public in
those situations, borders are still alive and kicking. However, there is rising hope on the horizon.
More and more countries are introducing modern means of public warning, which is a good starting
point for collaboration between those states.
In May 2014, the Behörden Spiegel has been paying attention to public warning in Germany. As in
Germany, the toolkit in The Netherlands for public warning consist of a mix of traditional and modern
means. We have NL-Alert, sirens, regional emergency broadcasting stations, the website
www.crisis.nl and the emergency services use social media. NL-Alert has been launched in November
2012 and is the latest addition to this toolkit. NL-Alert allows the authorities to inform people in the
direct vicinity of an emergency situation, by sending a text message to their cell phones. The message
will describe the situation and advise people what to do at that very moment.
Before explaining the technique behind NL-Alert, it is necessary to briefly sketch the way the Dutch
public authorities that deal with crisis are organized. The municipalities bear primary responsibility
for developing and implementing local security policies. Since 2010, recourses are pooled at a
regional level within 25 safety regions, which makes the emergency services better equipped to deal
with threats like major fires, floods, terrorism and nuclear accidents. If these incidents occur, it is the
responsibility of the chairman of the safety region to warn the public. The toolkit for this task is
largely provided by the central government.
Let’s take a closer look at NL-Alert. As already said, an NL-Alert is a text message which is send to the
cell phones of people in a certain area. The most important aspect of this message, is that it is not an
SMS. The messages are sent by means of cell broadcasting (CB). Whereas SMS messages are sent
point-to-point (meaning messages are individually sent to a known number), CB messages are sent
point-to-area. This can be compared with a radio signal; every handset that is ‘listening’ to a certain
CB channel and is within the coverage area of cells that are broadcasting a CB message, will receive
this message. An enormous amount of mobile phones can be reached within a very short period of
time, also in the case of network congestion. This is the main reason why NL-Alert uses CB.
Furthermore, it is not necessary to register. This is an important aspect in order to achieve
collaboration on a European level.
The nationwide launch of NL-Alert in November 2012 was accompanied by a public awareness
campaign. This campaign was not only intended to inform the population about this new system, but
also to encourage people to adjust the settings of their mobile phone. Although CB is specified in
worldwide telecommunication standards, namely GSM (2G) , UMTS (3G) and LTE(4G), many devices
on the European market were not set up to receive CB messages. Instructions how to adjust the
settings are provided on the websites www.nl-alert.nl. An increasing number of handhelds are now
put on the market with an automatic adjustment; this number will increase over the years to come.
In order to get an impression of how many citizens are actually able to receive NL-Alert, three
nationwide verification messages have been sent (also accompanied by awareness campaigns).
Through representative sampling, the direct reach of NL-Alert was measured in February 2013 at 1.4
million citizens, in November 2013 at 3.9 million and in June 2014 at 4.7 million. At the moment, NL-
Alert messages are only sent out by the three Dutch operators on 2G and 3G. The direct reach will
grow further when they are going to sent out on 4G in 2015.
In the end, it is all about actually using the system in case of emergency situations. NL-Alert is
appreciated by the public and the emergency services. A problem of the sirens is its doubtful
effectiveness. As is also the case in Germany, people respond badly to it. Because NL-Alert provides
information and a customized advise, the system is more often used. Between November 2012 and
July 2014, the system has been used 36 times in actual emergency situations (in particular large fires,
but also in case of a storm and the detonation of a bomb). Especially in the beginning this was a
process of trial and error; nowadays the dissemination of an actual NL-Alert message go’s without
significant problems.
To conclude, NL-Alert is a very useful tool for warning the public. More and more countries are using
public warning systems that sent messages to mobile phones. For instance, Lithuania, the USA, Japan
and Israel use a CB system. Others use a SMS service, like Norway, Sweden and Australia. And some
countries are in a pilot phase, like Belgium and the UK. Whatever solution European countries may
chose, it should not matter where people are on the continent when it comes to public warning in
emergency situations. Of course this will not be an easy task; many issues (technical, but also
language issues) need to be addressed. But The Netherlands – and hopefully Germany and a lot of
other European countries – are willingly to accept this challenge.