The European Commission has welcomed the endorsement by five more member states of the eCall in-car emergency system. This life-saving system automatically dials 112 – the emergency number most commonly used in Europe – in the event of a serious accident and, when fully deployed, could save up to 2,500 lives a year in Europe.
At a ceremony in Brussels on 4 May, five member states (Belgium, Denmark, Luxemburg, Malta and Romania) signed the eCall Memorandum of Understanding. In doing so, they have joined the 15 EU countries and three other European countries that 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.
EC 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.”
EC 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 the emergency number 112 in the event of a serious crash and transfers the exact location of the accident and other essential information to the nearest emergency service. It is estimated that the system could save up to 2,500 lives a year when fully deployed and mitigate the consequences of severe accidents in over 15 per cent of cases, due to reduced response time on the part of emergency services.
The Memorandum was also signed by organisations such as 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) and UTI Systems. The system has received the formal backing of 90 signatories, including mobile phone operators (IP/09/1290) as well as Europe’s car manufacturers.
In 2008, more than 1.2 million accidents on Europe’s roads caused around 39,000 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 able to handle the calls and all new vehicles must be equipped with the technology.
The Commission had called for eCall to be rolled out voluntarily across Europe by 2009 (IP/09/1245), but the system has been delayed due to a lack of support from some EU countries.
Background
The Commission has supported eCall-related research projects that ensure the technology will work across borders (eg E-MERGE and GST-Rescue) and gained public-private cooperation with its eSafety Initiative and the European eCall Implementation Platform. eCall is one of the priorities of the Intelligent Car Initiative and the Intelligent Transport Systems Action Plan that promotes the use of information and communication technologies to achieve smarter, safer and cleaner road transport (IP/06/191, IP/10/353).
In the last three years, the EU has provided around €160 million for research into ICT for transport, covering safety systems, intelligent vehicle systems and mobility services.