in a wait state waiting for an incoming enquiry call at step 202 after an enquiry call has been made the isap 11 answers the call at step 203 the isap 11 announces to the caller the choice of reports from which the caller can select one to listen to at step 204 the isap 11 determines whether the call has been disconnected or not if the call has been disconnected the isap 11 clears the call at step 207 and returns to the wait state at step 201 if on the other hand the line has not been disconnected the caller selects the desired report at step 205 with the default report being the first one in the list at step 206 the selected report is played to the caller at step 207 the call has cleared and a wait state is resumed in practice several isaps 11 are distributed over a wide area thus allowing queries concerning emergencies and the like to be re routed away from the local telephone exchange where the emergency occurred to distant exchanges this results in the reduction of call loading in the local exchange and hence reduces the likelihood of blockages in the local telephone exchange this in turn increases the probability of emergency call traffic being able to operate through the local exchange without hinderance in the described embodiments the gis 2 identifies telephone user numbers in a selected geographic area by searching using the parameters of the selected area in the location fields of a telephone user database 3 however the invention can equally be implemented by programming the gis 2 to search for buildings or residences using the buildings layer of the digital map and associated data layer.