eCall wins European approval

As a result of new legislation, from 2015 disoriented crash victims will no longer have to communicate their location to emergency services. In recent months,the national members of CEN, the European standardisation body, have voted and formally approved the standard covering Pan-European eCall Operating Requirements. At the same time, the EC has issued its long awaited recommendation that will lead to the Commission adopting specifications for the upgrade of emergency call response centres. It will also include 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. This means that in the event of an accident, new vehicles will be capable of automatically sending details of their location and identity to the nearest emergency service.

eCall has over the years met with a mixed response from both Europe’s member states and vehicle manufacturers. Andrew Sage, Helios Director, believes that this has more to do with cost than with its perceived benefit to citizens. “Vehicle manufacturers have understandably resisted additional costs, especially in such difficult economic and market conditions.

I believe that their new-found acceptance of this regulation is a sign of their growing belief in other connected services that can be delivered by the same device; all helped by ever-decreasing mobile data tariffs.”

Russia follows Europe's lead

While the European Commission moves forward with its plans for mandating eCall in newly Type Approved models from 2015, the Russian government continues with its more aggressive schedule of implementation from 2013 for its equivalent eCall programme. Adds Andrew: “We are yet to see whether the Russian requirement for GLONASS has any wider effect on the automotive GNSS market or whether this will remain a unique feature of the Russian domestic vehicle market. In the meantime, European GNSS services such as EGNOS today, and Galileo in the future, also have much to offer future connected vehicles and especially the more stringent requirements imposed by eCall.”

Helios is currently supporting the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) in its market development activities in road and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), and is consulting widely in the industry to help forecast the future of the market.

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