Federal Member for Grey Rowan Ramsey has welcomed the launch of the Emergency+ smartphone app by the Australian Government.

When activated, the Emergency+ app provides users with their GPS reference which they can verbally provide to an emergency call taker to pinpoint their physical location.

“I encourage everyone with a Smartphone to download this free app and to encourage family members to download it as well,” he said.

“In the case of an emergency the app can pinpoint the exact location of the caller enabling emergency services to quickly locate the position of the accident or fire.

“I have downloaded this app myself and it is very easy to use and gives callers an easy one-press button to call emergency services while providing GPS reference to pass on.”

Mr Ramsey said the increase in mobile phone use by Australians means that more than 65 per cent of calls to Triple Zero are made from mobile phones.

“Sometimes mobile phone users are not aware of their physical location – making it difficult for emergency call operators to accurately and quickly dispatch emergency services,” he said.

“This app solves this problem by providing callers with the ability to verbally provide emergency call operators with their location information as determined by their smartphone’s GPS capability.”

The app also contains the emergency contact numbers and a short explanation of when to call non-emergency numbers such as the Police Assistance Line (131 444) and the SES national number (132 500). This is to help members of the public dial the correct number and reduce the number of calls to the Triple Zero (000) service that should be directed to another service.

The Emergency+ app is available free of charge on iOS and Android devices through the Google Play store and the Apple App Store.

The development of the app was funded by the Australian Government through a National Emergency Management Project grant.