Brussels, 08/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission adopted a recommendation on Thursday 8 September seeking to have all new cars sold in the EU, Croatia, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland fitted with an emergency call system by 2015. The system will mean that the emergency services will be contacted automatically in the event of a serious accident and the vehicle's location immediately pinpointed. The recommendation urges member states to ensure that mobile phone network operators upgrade their infrastructure so that eCalls are efficiently passed on to emergency services. “I am delighted … that we have taken the first step to ensure that millions of citizens will benefit from eCall, a system that can slash the time emergency services need to arrive at road accidents. eCall will save hundreds of lives and reduce the pain and suffering of road accident victims”, said Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes.
When serious road accidents occur, every minute counts to save lives and reduce the severity of injuries. People injured in accidents do not always have the reflex or the physical ability to call emergency services immediately, however. eCall devices address this problem by alerting emergency services immediately even if the driver or passenger is unconscious or otherwise unable to call. It is estimated that the technology could speed up the arrival of emergency teams by 40% in urban areas and 50% in rural areas. Once widely deployed, eCall will save several hundred lives in Europe every year, and reduce the severity of injuries and trauma in tens of thousands of cases.
The recommendation urges every member state to ensure that mobile operators treat calls from eCall devices like other 112 calls - i.e. give them priority and do not charge for them. Member states should ensure that mobile operators put in place systems to identify eCalls so that they can be routed to an emergency service call centre equipped to handle them. The recommendation is due to be followed by adoption by the Commission of specifications for the upgrade of emergency call response centres, under the Intelligent Transport Systems Directive, and a proposal for a regulation to require eCall devices meeting the required technical specifications to be fitted to all new models of passenger cars and light vehicles from 2015 in order to obtain EU-wide type approval. Currently, only 0.7 % of all passenger vehicles in the EU are equipped with automatic emergency call systems, with numbers barely rising. The Commission had previously called for eCall to be rolled out voluntarily across Europe by 2009, promising compulsory measures if its requests were not acted upon. (I.L./transl.rt)