Safety improves in Jelgava

Jelgava has made great strides in the urban safety, most of them in the frame ofthe project "Creation of disaster management system in neighbouring regions of Latvia and Lithuania, Phase II".

Project results in Jelgava include risk assessment, a developed United Civil Protection (CP) Plan for the city, Jelgava region and Ozolnieki region, improved risk management information system, improved transport infrastructure for fire-fighters and rescue service, Intelligent Transport Management System and closed data transmission network system, municipal centre of operative information.

United CP Plan sets the procedure on how to prevent and eliminate the possible damage to the inhabitants and environment as fast as possible. The possible disasters in industrial objects and on roads, the social, health, natural disasters, agricultural and other risks were assessed. Results of several projects were combined in one target -the Municipal Centre of Operative Information (POIC). It was opened up on 8 February 2011. POIC consists of four sub-units: crisis elimination control centre, operative control unit ofthe municipal police, traffic control centre and united dispatcher point where the control system of problem registering is used. POIC main function is to gather information that is important for civil protection and provide it to the operative services and other services involved in disaster management. One source of information is the communication with the inhabitants. The phone line 8787 is active where the inhabitants can report problems. Currently POIC receives an average of 60 calls from citizens per day.

The POIC, in cooperation with municipal, national and regional institutions, carries out an operative collection and processing of reported problems and their further dissemination and action control.

The Intelligent Transport Management System -also managed from POIC - provides a connected operation of traffic lights. Thus the safety of traffic has been improved in the city-it is possible to handle traffic more effectively and optimize the flow of transport on the transit and main streets reducing the number of traffic accidents. The centre already shows good results - ensuring non intrusive safety measures in everyday life, guaranteeing faster action in possible emergencies, and promoting participation of citizens in making Jelgava safer.