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At the moment, the government has limited means to quickly and effectively reach, inform and prompt citizens to take action in urgent situations. This is particularly relevant in urgent safety situations such as (environmental) disasters or wrong-way drivers, where the government would like to provide targeted information to citizens in a specific area to encourage a certain action in order to minimise risks for the citizen and enhance self-reliance. The current tools available to the government for this purpose are mainly sirens and TV/radio, which may not always suffice. There are a number of platforms available for offering location-based public services. Cell broadcast (CB) is seen as the platform with the most potential, as it enables the government to display a message on all mobile devices (handsets) within a specific geographical area (e.g. municipality, province, entire Netherlands) within minutes, possibly accompanied by an alert tone. This is done in a way that ensures the citizen's privacy.
In recent times, the Ministries of Economic Affairs, Interior, Health, and Transport, Public Works and Water Management (V&W) have conducted several trials with CB services to assess whether CB can live up to its potential as a complementary tool for various government communication applications. Trials were set up, carried out, and evaluated in collaboration with market parties. The trials covered both citizen alerts and dangerous situations in traffic and transportation and were conducted in Zoetermeer, Utrecht, Amsterdam, and the province of Zeeland. For the traffic trials, a speech module has been developed by V&W which can audibly deliver CB text messages through a handset. This offers application possibilities for special groups such as drivers and, for example, the visually impaired.
