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The European Commission has welcomed five more Member States endorsing the eCall in-car emergency system. This life-saving system automatically dials Europe’s single emergency number 112 in the event of a serious accident and could save up to 2500 lives per year in Europe when fully deployed. At a ceremony in Brussels on 4 May Belgium Denmark Luxemburg Malta and Romania signed the EU’s Memorandum of Understanding to implement eCall across Europe joining 15 other European countries that had already signed.
European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes said: “I am very pleased that 20 Member States are now signing up to deploy eCall. This system is an excellent example of how information and communications technologies can improve and even save the lives of citizens
European Commission Vice-President for Transport Siim Kallas said “The eCall system can save many road users’ lives every year and I am therefore delighted that an increasing number of Member States are now committed to putting the system in place”.
eCall automatically dials Europe’s single emergency number 112 in case of a severe crash and transfers the exact location of the accident and other essential information to the nearest emergency service. It is estimated that eCall could save up to 2500 lives per year when fully deployed and mitigate the consequences of severe accidents in over 15% of cases due to reduced response time of emergency services.
Five Member States (Belgium Denmark Luxemburg Malta and Romania) signed the eCall Memorandum of Understanding at a ceremony in Brussels on 4th May. In doing so they join the 15 EU countries and 3 other European countries which have committed to deploying eCall (Austria Cyprus Czech Republic Estonia Finland Germany Greece Italy Lithuania Portugal Slovakia Slovenia Spain The Netherlands Sweden Iceland Norway and Switzerland).
The Memorandum was also signed on 4 May by additional organisations namely Agoria ATX Belgian Automobile Club Touring DEKRA Electronics Solutions European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) EUROSMART GMV ITS Belgium National Company of Motorways and National Roads from Romania OctoTelematics Romanian-American University Special Telecommunications Service (STS) UTI Systems. The system has received formal backing of 90 signatories including mobile phone operators as well as Europe’s car manufacturers.
In 2008 more than 1.2 million accidents on Europe’s roads caused around 39000 deaths and more than 1.7 million injuries. The eCall system is estimated to cost less than €100 per new car to install.
To fully deploy eCall national administrations must ensure that their emergency services call centres are equipped to handle the calls and all new vehicles must be equipped with eCall technology.
The Commission had called for eCall to be rolled out voluntarily across Europe by 2009 but the system has been delayed due to a lack of support from some EU countries.
Useful links
Original Press Release
The EU’s Memorandum of Understanding and list of signatories
EU News: eCall Implementation Platform
EU News: Report on “the eCall Summit: Time for Deployment”
Link to original Article
http://www.ertico.com/eu-news-five-more-countries-for-ecall/
Original Publication Date: Mon 26 Jul 2010
