In an operating method for an emergency vehicle, especially a fire truck, having a vehicle body, a drive unit having a drive motor and a motor controller, front-wheel and rear-wheel pairs, an emergency aggregate, a signaling device, an illuminating device, and a mode-of-operation controller having a mode-of-operation selector switch having selectable operation modes and a memory with saved operating-data sets, by a sequence controller of the mode-of-operation controller, selecting a first operation mode corresponding to an emergency trip transmits from the memory to the target systems, and activates, first operating-data data sets. Selecting a second operation mode corresponding to an emergency mode deactivates the transmitted first operation mode operating-data sets, and transmits from the memory to the target systems, and activates, second operating-data sets. Selecting a third operation mode corresponding to a standard operation mode deactivates the transmitted data sets of the first, second or any further operation modes.