HeERO the pan European project for eCall deployment pilots held its kick-off meeting at ERTICO – ITS Europe on 18 January. During the next three years the nine European countries forming the HeERO consortium will carry out the start-up of an interoperable and harmonised 112 based in-vehicle emergency call system. They all share the same high-level objective: prepare the local e112 eCall infrastructure necessary for the provision of a sustainable eCall service for European citizens and share their experiences with the other EU Members and Associated States.
Italy Germany Romania Czech Republic Greece The Netherlands Croatia Finland and Sweden the nine countries which will implement test and operate eCall pre-deployment pilots during the next three years gathered on 18 January 2011 at ERTICO – ITS Europe in Brussels to kick-off the HeERO project. In order to prepare for the deployment in Europe of the infrastructure necessary for the provision of the eCall service they will together implement operate and validate in real-life environments the European eCall agreed standards the needed technical and operational infrastructure upgrades and the value-added services that can be linked to the eCall open platform. HeERO will also carry out certification and homologation tests and procedures for the eCall systems and end-to-end services.
To achieve these goals the HeERO consortium is built on a European level management led by ERTICO – ITS Europe and on national teams gathering locally all actors of the eCall service value-chain: the Public Safety Answering Points the Emergency Management Centres the Mobile Network Operators the Fleet Owners the Private and Public Road Operators and the Car Manufacturers.
The HeERO consortium is committed towards the wide European deployment of eCall and will therefore share the results of the testing and operations of the pilots with the European Standardisation Organisations for fine-tuning the existing standards and with the European eCall Implementation Platform for disseminating eCall implementation good practices throughout Europe.
The pan-European in-vehicle emergency call “eCall” is estimated to have the potential to save up to 2500 fatalities annually in EU-27 when fully deployed to reduce the severity of injuries bring significant savings to society in healthcare and reduce human suffering. The pan European eCall concept started in 2002. Since then more than 120 organisations signed the Memorandum of Understanding for eCall deployment including 20 EU Member States and eCall has been identified as one of the priority areas of the ITS Directive.
HeERO is a Pilot Type A Project supported by a 5 M€ funding from the European Commission Directorate General Information Society and Media under the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP) – ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT-PSP). It started on 1 January 2011 and will last for 36 months. The project coordinator of HeERO is Monica Schettino from ERTICO – ITS Europe and the national pilot leaders are: ITS Romania ITS Niedersachsen – Germany Ministry of Transport and Communications – Finland Ministry of Transport – Czech Republic Presidency of Council of Ministers – Italy Ministry of Infrastructure Transport and Networks – Greece Security Arena Lindholmen Science Park AB – Sweden National Protection and Rescue Directorate – Croatia Rijkswaterstaat – The Netherlands.
For more information please contact: Monica Schettino.
Link to original Article
http://www.ertico.com/heero-triggers-the-final-countdown-for-ecall-deployment/
Original Publication Date: Mon 24 Jan 2011
