The European Commission has adopted a measure to ensure that by 2015 your car can call emergency services for you in case of a crash. The Commission wants the life-saving eCall system to be fitted to all new models of cars and light vehicles from 2015. eCall automatically dials Europe’s single emergency number 112 in the event of a serious accident and communicates the vehicle’s location to the emergency services. According to some estimates eCall could speed emergency response times by 40% in urban areas and 50% in the countryside and save up to 2500 lives a year. The measure adopted on 26 November 2012 establish the conditions under which the emergency call response centres will be capable of properly receiving and handling of 112 eCalls.
Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas responsible for transport said: “These measures are the first adopted under the Intelligent Transport Systems Directive. They address the upgrading of emergency call response centres to receive and process 112 eCalls including calls from vehicles registered in any EU country. Together with my colleagues responsible for Digital Agenda and Industry Vice Presidents Neelie Kroes and Antonio Tajani I will pursue our joint efforts to ensure that by 2015 the introduction of the eCall service in the whole European Union will be effective.”
The Commission’s aim is for a fully functional eCall service to be in place all over the European Union (as well as Croatia Iceland Norway and Switzerland) by 2015.
The common measures for emergency call response centres (also known as Public Safety Answering Points) will ensure the proper handling of 112 eCalls and the EU-wide interoperability and continuity of the service.
A legislative proposal will follow on the deployment of these measures as well as a proposal for a Regulation to require eCall devices to be fitted to all new models of passenger cars and light vehicles from 2015 in order to obtain EU-wide type approval.
Source: European Commission
Link to original Article
http://www.ertico.com/commission-helping-to-deploy-112-ecall-for-emergency-services/
Original Publication Date: Mon 03 Dec 2012
