Design for Safety: A New Service for Alarming and Informing the Population in Case of Emergency

In case of emergencies, the population in danger should be alarmed so individuals can take action to get or remain out of danger. The means available for alarming the population are limited. Many countries have outdoor sirens. Their operability however is restricted since sirens have only one implicit instruction. In 2012 a new citizens’ alarming and informing system was introduced using cell broadcast in The Netherlands. This chapter discusses the field of citizens’ alarming and the type of technologies available to communicate to the population. This framework is relevant for understanding how one should asses a new technology from a safety point of view. One of the challenges for the new alarming service is the composition of a short text message to alarm the population via their mobile phone, which is complete, relevant and correct for situation. This new field is recently being explored. We explain amongst others how the not yet known disaster is dominant for the message content and explain how a message can be composed. Results from workshops with experts from the emergency rescue services are discussed. We rounds off arguing dilemmas in order to get to effective citizens’ alarming via the new service.