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| On-line help - eCall makes progress.
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10/12/04 |
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Ten EU member states have given an undertaking to sign an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) on eCall. The undertaking, given at a High Level meeting in Brussels on 27th September, gives a further substantial boost to hopes of achieving the EU's target of a 50% reduction in the 40,000 annual road deaths by the end of the decade.
Aimed at producing a pan-European, fully interoperable telematics system of summoning aid and improving the survival rates of persons injured in road traffic collisions, the eCall programme is part of the wider eSafety project looking at a number of issues, including real-time traffic and travel information (RTTI) and human/machine interaction (HMI).
Signing of the MOU by member states now awaits the completion of internal processes with the expectation that the system will be fully operational by 2006.
The High Level meeting was organised by the EC's Information Society Directorate and the eSafety Forum with representatives from ACEA and ERTICO. Other stakeholders are now expected to join the initiative and accelerate the development of the eCall facility to the point where all new vehicles sold in Europe will eventually be eCall equipped.
In a separate development PSA Peugeot Citroën have announced the introduction of an emergency call system for a number of their models in France. The French Road Safety and Traffic Department (DSCR) has calculated that about 250 traffic fatalities a year could be avoided by the general introduction of the eCall system throughout France.
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