Airbus Heralds the New Era of Alerting in the German State of Hesse

Airbus has delivered more than 50,000 Tetra pagers "P8GR" to the Hessian fire brigades, emergency services and civil protection units. Having symbolically handed over the 50,000th pager P8GR to the fire department of the city of Bruchköbel, the Hessian state government in Germany has made possible for the majority of the volunteer and full-time mission forces of the state to now use the alarm via the critical communication system for public safety.

In 2012, Airbus won the public tender and developed the pager to enable rapid alerting of public safety forces. Airbus not only provides the equipment but also supplies the delivery system and programming for all equipment and accessories.

The P8GR allows two-way data transmission. In the event of a fire or a serious accident, control centres can alert emergency services securely and reliably within a few seconds. Firefighters or forces of other organisations can immediately send feedback to the alert recipient when they agree to take over the job. The control centres thus have an overview of the available team in a short time span. In addition, Mission operators can, if necessary, re-alert to ensure that the required number of helping hands is available. This shortens the response time and simplifies resource planning.

"The P8GR project in Hesse is a success from the outset because everyone involved has pulled together. The state government has laid the foundations and Airbus has been able to fulfill the wishes of the Hessian authorities and organisations with security tasks," says Markus Kolland, Head of Sales & Program Delivery for Northern, Central and Eastern Europe for Secure Land Communications at Airbus. "This project is not only a milestone but unique. We hope that it will be a role model, so that people in danger can be saved even faster.

In autumn 2013, Airbus presented, for the first time, the world's first P8GR to the public. Following this, the certification from the Hessian Ministry of the Interior and Sport was then granted in 2015. Therefore, the device fully meets all the interoperability and safety requirements that the German Federal Agency for Public Safety Digital Radio (BDBOS). In addition, a successful field and functional test with all fire departments in Hesse using 1,000 pagers was accomplished. In autumn 2016, the delivery of 50,000 P8GR to the Hessian fire brigades and rescue services began.