Europe makes 'eCall' high priority

The European Commission has made a final call to the European governments to speed up the implementation of the 'eCall' technology that uses cellular networks to automatically alert emergency services when a road accident occurs.

Currently, the deployment of eCall is voluntary and is not being used in any EU country. The Commission warns, in a policy document, that if no significant progress is made in rolling out the system by the end of 2009 it could propose regulatory measures to make it mandatory.

The Commission has presented a policy document with a strategy for introducing an affordable in-car emergency call system in all new vehicles across Europe by 2014, starting next year. Triggered automatically, if the passengers cannot do so, eCall is claimed to be able to save up to 2,500 lives per year in the EU when fully deployed and reduce severity of injuries by 10 to 15%.




Implementing eCall needs the full collaboration of the car and telecoms industries, as well as national administrations in all EU countries who must ensure that their emergency services are equipped to handle eCalls.

Although the technology is ready and common EU-wide standards have been agreed by industry, six EU countries ( Denmark, France, Ireland, Latvia, Malta and the UK) are still not ready to commit, due to cost related concerns.

Preparing phone networks and emergency services for the roll out of eCall in cars across Europe has the full support of the European Parliament and 15 EU countries who have signed the eCall Memorandum of Understanding (Austria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, the Netherlands and Sweden) and three other European countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) .

Another six countries (Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary, Luxembourg, Romania and Poland) support eCall and are willing to sign the agreement in due time.

Before making eCall fully operational across the EU, countries must agree common standards and guidelines for harmonised deployment of the system and perform field tests putting it into practice (pilots have been launched in some EU countries, including Finland, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Italy, The Netherlands). Through its Competitiveness and Innovation Programme the Commission may financially support such pilots, as well as public awareness campaigns about how the technology works.

Road accidents cost the EU economy more than EUR160 billion a year. Equipping all cars in the EU with the eCall system could save EUR26 billion annually while the system' is estimated to cost less than EUR100 per car. Introducing this device will not only benefit consumers, but also businesses by enabling the car and telecoms industries to offer new upgraded applications and services (like digital tachographs or electronic tolls) based on eCall to be installed in all vehicles and use satellite positioning technology.