New way to pinpoint 999 calls on mobiles

Pioneering technology to trace 999 calls made from mobile phones is being used for the first time in London.

The system will speed up response times for ambulances and may save lives.

Callers often do not know exactly where they are but can give clues such as a nearby road name. Vital minutes can be wasted while the caller tries to work out where they are.

The new system means London Ambulance Service can pinpoint a position in an eighth of a second. As soon as the call-taker answers the phone, a circle appears on their on-screen map and the precise location can be identified. It can give someone's position within 500metres but phone networks are trying to make this more precise.

About 750 emergency calls from mobiles are received by the service each day - a quarter of its 999 calls.

The ambulance service's deputy director of technology, Quentin Armitage, said: "It uses a system called Enhanced Information For Emergency Service Calls which was already in use for landline calls. Now we can use it for mobile calls too."