European Parliament’s Transport Committee adopts report on eCall

Members of the European Parliament’s Transport and Tourism committee on 21 March voted strongly in favour of a report urging the rapid implementation of eCall - the pan-European in-vehicle emergency call. Generated either manually by a vehicle occupant or automatically via activation of in-vehicle sensors, the eCall will establish voice contact with the nearest emergency centre (Public Service Answering Point) and automatically transmit key data about the accident, including its accurate location.

The report, drafted by MEP Gary Titley, stresses that Member States should urgently sign the eCall Memorandum of Understanding to ensure that eCall is fully rolled out by the 2009 deadline. So far, only seven of the 25 EU Member States have signed: Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia and Sweden.

The MEPs also criticise Member States for their lack of efforts in implementing and promoting the single European emergency number 112 and so called E112 - 112 calls from mobile phones with location information. eCall technology will be based on E112 and it is crucial that it is implemented Europe-wide. The Committee members therefore ask the Commission to do an evaluation of national implementation actions  to date.

National efforts to prepare the Public Service Answering Points for handling eCalls are also deemed to be insufficient, and the report recommends that further efforts and resources be allocated for language training and an upgrade of identification and call handling services.

With estimates showing that eCall could save 2500 lives a year and €22 billion annually in costs related to accidents and €4 billion in annual congestion cost, the report assesses that the benefits of the system outweigh the cost, and urges stakeholders to work together to define incentives to speed up its introduction.

The final adoption of the report is planned for 26 April 2006, when the European Parliament meets in plenum in Brussels.

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