force area; most frequently these are calls that are made within a few miles of a border. upon establishing the incident location, the emergency service operator will relay the information to the responsible force for their dispatch. in most areas, forces will respond to incidents just beyond their border if they could get there quicker, assist, and then hand over to other forces when they arrive. on strategic routes like almost all motorways and some major a roads in the united kingdom, highways england have placed blue driver location signs with the location printed on them, at approximately 500-metre intervals. although emergency sos phones are placed along the hard shoulder on all motorways (and in emergency refuge areas on smart motorways) which automatically send location information to the highways england regional control centre (rcc), most people involved in a road emergency call from their mobile phones and so need another way to identify their location. these signs contain a code which can be given to the emergency operator or the rcc. for example, a sign may say "m1 a 100.5". this translates as the m1 motorway, on the "a" carriageway, at 100.5 kilometres from the m1's nominal start at staples corner. the "a" and "b" carriageways are designated by highways england to each carriageway, dependent upon which direction it travels; these normally refer to whether the carriageway goes "away from london" or "back to london". on circular motorways like the london orbital m25 and m60 manchester outer ring road, the clockwise carriageway is the a carriageway and the anti-clockwise carriageway is the b carriageway. letters j, k, l and m refer to slip roads at junctions. these signs are in addition to the pre-existing 100m distance marker posts alongside the carriageway. abandoned and hoax calls an abandoned call is when a caller, intentionally or otherwise, rings 999 and then ends the call or stays silent. abandoned calls are filtered by emergency operators bt and cable & wireless, and are either disconnected or passed on to police. they are normally disconnected by the operator repeating "emergency. which service?", then if no response is given, the operator will say "do you need police, fire or ambulance?". if there is still no response, the operator will sometimes ask the caller to press the keypad or make a noise if they need assistance. if no response is given, they will confirm they are clearing the line. for abandoned calls, if the caller requests the police and the call is routed to police and then the line is dropped, either while waiting for connection or on the line with police, they are checked by police and called back. if there is no answer, the police service are likely to attend and if the line is disconnected without the caller telling the operator which service they need, they then make a decision to filter the call to police (if suspicious background noise) or clear the line. the most common reasons for abandoned calls include: accidental dialling of 999 on mobile phones. as a gsm standard, mobile phones still allow emergency calls to be made even with the keypad locked. faulty phone lines. believing an urban myth that says dialling 999 charges mobile phone batteries ireland in ireland, 999 (and the european and gsm standard 112) are the national emergency numbers. the 999 and 112 service is able to respond in english, irish, polish, french, german and italian. 999 and 112 operators in ireland answer the calls in under one second and say "emergency, which service?". the caller may then request the gardaí (the irish police), ambulance, fire service, coast guard, or cave and mountain rescue service. the caller is then transferred to the emergency dispatcher for the appropriate service. bangladesh in bangladesh, 999 is the national emergency number. it officially launched on 12 december 2017. this number is toll-free. calling this number connects the caller to an operator, who then connects the caller to the police, ambulance or fire service. the services are provided under a national emergency help desk operated by the bangladesh police, which has been set up at a cost of tk 60.50 crore. although the 'national emergency service 999' is operated by the bangladesh police, fire service and civil defense personnel and the ambulance service dispatchers of the department of health also work closely with the police 24/7 to ensure proper service. in the past, dialling 100 would connect to bangladesh police, 101 to rapid action battalion, 102 to fire services, 103 to ambulance service and 104 to the access to information programme under the prime minister's office. hong kong and macau 999 was introduced to hong kong for emergency services (police, fire-fighting services and ambulance services) during british rule and continues to be used following the transfer of sovereignty. macau also adopted the 999 number; it also introduced two emergency hotline numbers: 110 (mainly for tourists from mainland china) and 112 (mainly for tourists from overseas). the worldwide emergency number for gsm mobile phones, 112, also works on all gsm networks in the territories. calls made to this number are redirected to the 999 call centre. malaysia the 999 emergency services in malaysia is staffed by about 138 telephonists from telekom malaysia. like singapore, the number was inherited from british rule and continued after independence. ongoing upgrading works are taking place to introduce the computer-telephony integration (cti) for hospital exchanges, digital mapping to track the callers' locations and computer assisted despatching (cad) for online connectivity among the agencies providing the emergency services in the country. all calls to the number are made free of charge. in the late 90s, the number 994 was adopted as a direct connection to fire stations, but use of the number has been discontinued due to cost-saving measures taken by the government. 991 connects to civil services. the worldwide emergency number for gsm mobile phones, 112, also works on all gsm networks in the country. calls made to this number are redirected to the 999 call centre. mauritius mauritius uses the 999 emergency number for police contact only. the other emergency numbers in use are 114 for emergency medical assistance and 115 for the fire service. poland the 112 emergency number is an all-service number in poland like in other eu states, but old numbers that were traditionally designated for emergencies are still in use parallel to 112. those are 999 for ambulance, 998 for fire brigade and 997 for police. united arab emirates in the united arab emirates the 999 service is used to contact the police who are also capable of forwarding the call as appropriate to the ambulance or fire services. the number 998 connects directly to the ambulance service and 997 to the fire brigade. singapore in singapore, the number 999 was inherited from british rule and continued after independence. the number is attributed more to requesting for the police, with the number 995, established in 1984, used for direct lines to the fire brigade and ambulance services of the singapore civil defence force. because most of the population of singapore is chinese, it is likely that 995 was adopted because the chinese pronunciation for that number (九九五, jiŭ jiŭ wŭ) sounds similar to the chinese phrase for 'save me' (救救我, jiù jiù wŏ). eswatini the kingdom of eswatini uses the 999 emergency number for police contact only, and 975 for human trafficking reports. the other emergency numbers in use are 977 for emergency medical assistance and 933 for the fire service. trinidad and tobago in trinidad and tobago, 999 is used to contact the police only. the number 811 is used for the ambulance service and 990 for the fire brigade. uganda in uganda, callers can call the police on either 112 or 999. canada in 1959, winnipeg, manitoba (16 municipalities) used 9-9-9 as the first north american deployment of a local unified emergency number. north america later standardised on 9-1-1, with +1-204-999-xxxx eventually reassigned as a standard mobile telephone exchange. even in 2022, dialling 9-9-9 in certain areas of canada, e.g., gatineau, qc, may be transferred to the 999 call system.