One and a half million calls in two years. This is the balance of the Single European Number 112 in Sardinia, since the first emergency call from Olbia arrived at the Sassari switchboard on 29 November 2022. After a gradual transition to the other telephone districts of the Island, the NUE112 officially started throughout Sardinia a few months later, on 1 March 2023.

The Central Unica di risposta (CUR) of Sassari, the first of the two planned to be active in Sardinia, today responds to calls from users residing anywhere on the island in just two and a half seconds , in line with the others in Italy. The operator encodes the request for emergency assistance and immediately activates the second level centers (medical assistance, law enforcement, firefighters or port authorities) transferring the precise location of the caller and details of the request for intervention in a few seconds.

The Single European Number 112 acts as a filter: of the million and a half calls, only half were appropriate. In 2024, the NUE112 Central recorded an average of 2,000 calls per day in the winter months and 3,000 calls per day in the summer , recording peaks during adverse weather events such as the recent floods and fires. Areus, through its general management, aims to build a second central in Southern Sardinia: the Region has granted a building in Elmas, which is expected to be operational by the end of 2027 .

"An important turning point in improving the emergency service at NUE112 will be when all Sardinians have downloaded the free national app "Where are u" onto their cell phones," explains NUE112 Director Michela Cualbu. "It allows you to make an emergency call with the automatic sending of data relating to the precise location of the caller to the operator of the Single Response Center. Furthermore, thanks to the app you can make "silent calls." This option is particularly useful in dangerous situations, such as assaults and violence, in the case in which the person cannot speak . The alarm and the location of the caller reaches the NUE112 Center which immediately activates the police without necessarily having to speak to the user."