Assistance for emergency call management

The revised VDI regulation 4705 was published in October 2024. It deals with emergency call management plans for the organisational and technical handling of emergency calls.

Michael Puttrus, the President of the Regulation Committee, summarised the most important contents.

An up-to-date description of the management of lift emergency calls is now once again available. Regulation 4705 indicates which statutory tasks must be considered. It specifies that lift emergency calls do not just depend on the technical installations described in EN 81-28 but also on organisational measures.

Focus of the regulation has changed

This regulation above all describes the situation in Germany, taking into account the current standards and Operational Safety Ordinance with its associated new TRBS (technical regulations for operational safety). Since all lifts now have to be fitted with an emergency call telephone, the focus of the regulation has also changed.

It describes the technical solutions and the required organisational measures. Emergency call management covers a series of activities to ensure the availability of the emergency call installation and facilitate rescue of the passengers. Procedural advice is provided on how emergency calling and passenger rescue can be reliably organised.

Raising awareness of all concerned

Those responsible for lifts can only take effective measures if they know the processes in their lifts. This regulation indicates how they can ensure that passengers are not trapped for an unnecessarily long time by detecting organisational or technical weaknesses in the process sequence. Hence, the regulation makes a contribution to raising the awareness of all those involved in the process.

VDI 4705 can be of assistance to everyone who organises, plans, implements or monitors lift emergency calls. It shows which technical equipment results in measures that are difficult to organise and should therefore be avoided.

Record and document the information needed

Standard plans and forms for interventions help to record and document the information needed in full. The regulation also includes a history of the regulations with the corresponding changes in the emergency calling technology deployed. It provides a list of the advantages and disadvantages of the different solutions, which are intended to help in drawing up a hazard evaluation in relation to passenger rescue.

The core message of the revised regulation is once again that emergency call management is also part of the safe operation of lifts. VDI 4705 can be ordered subject to charge from Beuth Verlag.

The author was the Managing Director of Safeline Germany.

More information: vdi.de