Everbridge's deployment of Iceland’s national alerting system has gone live. The provider now supports four countries: Greece, Iceland, the Netherlands and Sweden as part of the EU's drive to have population-wide alerting systems in place by 2022.

Within Iceland, the Everbridge Public Warning solution is being used to provide population-wide alerting to reach Iceland’s 360,000 residents and some two million annual visitors. Local residents and visitors alike are able to receive location-based SMS notifications on their mobile phones if they are within an area where a sudden critical event has occurred such as fire, volcanic activity, extreme weather or a terror attack. Public Warning also allows Iceland emergency authorities to seamlessly engage in two-way communication with people to check on whether they are safe and to receive requests for assistance.

“This new location-based alerting system allows us to turn around information very quickly,” said Tómas Gíslasen, deputy CEO at 112 Iceland. “Within minutes, we can reach large portions of the population leveraging a system with proven scale. This can be of great importance to anyone who finds themselves in a disaster area or who needs support to find a relative. We also get a lot of information from the system. Knowing how many people there are in the area can help us understand the gravity of the situation and better prepare for the next steps in our rescue efforts.”

Everbridge Public Warning uses existing telecoms infrastructure, with no end user registration or opt-in required. All mobile phones located within a specified geographic area can be notified by government emergency authorities using location-based information from local cell towers.

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