Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner responsible for the Digital Agenda, has reinforced the EC’s commitment to public eCall emergency assistance services at a Brussels event organised by Eucar, the European Carmaker’s R&D body. Kroes encouraged European vehicle manufacturers to lobby national governments to support connected car services including eCall. “I urge you to get the relevant Member State ministers sitting in such cars tomorrow to help secure the support you need to get such ideas to market,” she said.
A consortium of Germany companies led by BMW, Allianz, Dekra, IBM and NXP has been demonstrating eCall services across Europe as part of a public awareness initiative. Cars from Athens, Helsinki and Madrid converged on Brussels at the end of November after generating test eCall messages during the journeys totalling 10,000 km. The eCall messages were sent via Deutsche Telekom and its roaming partners to servers operated by IBM and Allianz OrtungsServices. IBM sent the incident location information to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP).
In addition to end consumers, the demonstration is aimed at generating support for public eCall deployment among national governments, such as France and the UK, that remain unconvinced of the cost/benefit justification for mandating a pan-European service.
Incident Support Group, a UK-based company, has launched a private eCall service aimed at fleet operators. The system, named ISG Sense, alerts an ISG data and call centre if a collision occurs. ISG then provides PSAP emergency services with details and location of the incident. ISG also provides data to insurance companies. The service is priced £12 a month per vehicle.
SBD is continuing its on-going research into the prospects for both private and public eCall services in Europe. A new analysis report is scheduled for release early in 2011. To register your interest in this research, contact Juanita Appleby on jappleby@sbd.co.uk