How is it possible that the emergency services are not aware of the condition of the street? That’s what the residents of Jasper Van Kinschotstraat wonder. They do admit that it is complicated and that the street was only extended two years ago. “They’re probably not used to it yet,” Ronny Broeckx is resigned to the situation. “The posts certainly ensure that it is a quiet place to live here. But it did indeed take a while before the fire brigade was able to remove our neighbor from her home with the lift truck. We have no idea how she is doing, but she was in serious condition, so some haste was required.”
Ronny Broeckx also noticed that the emergency services had entered the street from the wrong side. — © BERT DE DEKEN
Ronny lives in the new part of the street, in a home of the social housing company Woonboog. “Almost all of us were neighbors in the Xaverianenplantsoen, where our homes have now been demolished. So we know each other and we have talked about it among ourselves that it is strange that the emergency services take the wrong road.”
GPS
“It happens sometimes,” fire chief Gert Bax responds. “There are several reasons for this. Many streets are being added and posts or street ornaments are regularly placed without our knowledge. We used to draw approach routes and use city maps, but nowadays we can fortunately rely on GPS. The emergency center 112 that controls us also works with GPS. The GPS devices in our cars are constantly updated. If the GPS sends us incorrectly, it means that the GPS providers do not know the changed situation.”
“Our service has noted that our information is not always picked up by the route planners. We now have a permanent contact person at Waze”
Marc Boogers (Green)
Aldermen for Mobility
If a new street is constructed or the direction of travel changes in a street, the Mobility department of the city of Turnhout immediately informs all route planners. “Our service has noted that this information is not always picked up by the route planners,” says Alderman for Mobility Marc Boogers (Green). “Sometimes because the GPS makers do not follow up on these reports, sometimes because residents make the opposite report, so that the GPS makers no longer know which situation is correct. At Waze we now have a permanent contact person who does not simply replace the information from ‘road manager city of Turnhout’.”
Bollards prevented the passage of the emergency services. — © rr
Not only the route planners, but also the traffic sign database receives all adjustments very consistently. “That information ends up on the website www.geopunt.be. These are open data that GPS makers also use to indicate speed regimes, for example.”
Supralocal approach
The Spatial Planning Department passes on all changes that impact the land registry, such as new addresses, plots and streets, to the land registry. “These changes, however, are not immediately available,” Marc Boogers also notes. “There is a delay. This often proves to be a problem, especially with new streets, because parcel services, among other things, cannot find those new streets.”
“We also experience what the residents in Jasper Van Kinschotstraat experienced as a major problem,” says Marc Boogers. “Something that should be tackled locally.”
Tags: GPS sends emergency services street wrong side ambulance posts Turnhout
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