Norway signs up to eCall

Creation date: 16 June 2006

On the occasion of the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council in Luxemburg on 8 June, Norway signed the eCall Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Norway is the first non-EU country to sign the Memorandum. The move gives a significant boost to the service, which aims to substantially reduce the time needed for emergency services to respond to road accidents.

Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner responsible for Information Society and Media, congratulated Norway for joining Finland, Sweden, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia, Cyprus and Switzerland in the signature of the MoU. “This is an important step towards the implementation of the pan-European eCall service. As the European Parliament stressed in its recently approved report, it is important that all Member States sign the MoU as soon as possible, in order to demonstrate a clear commitment to the implementation of eCall to other stakeholders. I would like to encourage all the Member States to join Norway and the other European countries that already signed the eCall MoU. eCall is for the benefit of the European citizens,” she said.

Generated either manually by a vehicle occupant or automatically via activation of in-vehicle sensors, an eCall will establish voice contact with the nearest emergency centre and automatically transmit key data about the accident, including the accurate location. This will enable emergency personnel to reach the scene of the accident faster, thereby increasing victims’ chances of survival.

'We firmly believe that the system will save lives and reduce the social burden by improving the notification of road accidents and speeding up emergency service response. Norway supports the ambition of introducing the system by 2009, and will actively contribute to the development and agreement of implementation plans conforming to the principles of a pan-European eCall service,' said Norwegian State Secretary, Steinulf Tungesvik.

For more information, please visit the eCall Toolbox.