East Thuringia control center network - noticeable increase in safety

The districts of Greiz, Altenburger Land, Saalfeld - Rudolstadt, Saale-Orla-Kreis, Saale-Holzland-Kreis and the cities of Jena and Gera have once again met to discuss the developments of the joint large-scale project "East Thuringia control center network" and to exchange information on the strategies to be pursued.

In Eastern Thuringia, the aim is to network the control centers in Jena and Gera in order to create not only the necessary redundancy but also the basis for coping with future challenges, such as in particular increased demands on staffing (e.g. emergency paramedics, control center training) and the constantly evolving technology (e.g. conversion to digital radio).

In addition to increasing the level of safety, the East Thuringia control centre network is also intended to optimize the available resources and thus relieve the burden on all those involved in the medium term.

To this end, the 1st deputy of the Saale-Orla district, Mr. Jürgen Hauck, invited to Schleiz on 08.07.2019, who praised the achievements to date right at the beginning and expressed the opinion that a model region for sustainable control centre operation in Thuringia is being created here.

Noticeable increase in safety

Kurt Dannenberg from Gera and Benjamin Koppe from Jena, the heads of finance, security and citizen services responsible for the control centers, could only agree. "We are aware that we have a clear head start. But it is indisputable that we are meeting the requirements of the health insurance companies and the Free State on the one hand and achieving a noticeable increase in safety on the other. We will press ahead with this project because we are convinced that we are on the right track," says Mayor Kurt Dannenberg. Benjamin Koppe adds: "As my colleague from Gera rightly points out, this is an opportunity for everyone involved. We understand that the state government wants to organize and oversee the process. However, this is an opportunity for a test operation that already ensures the required redundancies and serves as a model for a nationwide and uniform control center structure."

In its report on the "Structural optimization of central control centers in the Free State of Thuringia" presented in summer 2018, the state government made it clear that it would generously support the implementation of the optimization recommendations. In addition to the control center-operating cities of Jena and Gera, the other partners in Eastern Thuringia are now also hoping for this commitment. "The experts from Jena and Gera have been preparing something here for years that the state government only wants to start in the coming months," says Jürgen Hauck. "It would simply be a waste of time if the state government did not at least support our test region financially now, but instead went through the process that we have already gone through in recent years again in the coming years, only to achieve the goal much later."