European eCall standard aims to reduce road deaths from 2010
Published: 7 April, 2009
READ MORE: Europe
A new mobile standard has been ratified, which will lead to most European cars having a built-in mobile phone to report accidents automatically. The move is part of a European Commission attempt to make roads safer and speed up response to potentially fatal accidents, though the system will work at many different levels.
It is built around an established platform called eCall, which emerged, like the new road safety initative and its accompany standards, from two bodies - ETSI (European Telecommunication Standards Institute) and the 3GPP. This collaboration means that a single Europe-wide phone number, 112, is adopted for all countries for emergencies, and callers can speak to operators in any language.
The eCall system automatically generates an emergency voice call via the cellular network to local emergency agencies, as well as sending crucial information such as location data. It is scheduled for introduction across Europe in late 2010.
In-car systems were going to use the SMS protocol, but since these messages can be substantially delayed, a new type of in-band modem was devised, which will generate just 140bytes of data with the minimum amount of information the emergency services will need. This can be delivered in under four seconds, and is acknowledged with a return signal. No modifications are required to existing cellular networks. This is the latest step in a six-year effort to standardize eCall in an in-band modem.
An eCall can be made by a person but Europe believes the automatic in-car calls will have greater results in serious accidents. All new vehicles should eventually be equipped with the system, starting from 2010, in an attempt to reduce the 40,000 deaths each year on Europe's roads. Qualcomm is one of the companies behind the initiative because it operates similar services in other countries and reckons that eCall has the potential to save 2,500 lives and €26bn each year in the EU alone.
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