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MEPs vote for eCall devices in new cars

Xinhua, April 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

The European Parliament (EP) voted Tuesday to force vehicle manufacturers to install automatic emergency call devices.

The 'eCall' devices automatically alert rescue services if the vehicles carrying them are involved in a crash. At the plenary session of the EP in Strasbourg, MEPs voted through rules that would oblige manufacturers to fit the devices to all new models of cars and light vans sold from March 31, 2018.

Road accidents claimed 25,700 lives in the European Union (EU) in 2014. At a press conference following the vote, the rapporteur, Czech Socialist MEP Olga Sehnalova, said the new devices could cut deaths from road accidents by 10 percent each year.

"If rescue vehicles can reach the site of an accident more quickly this could save as many as 2,500 lives each year," she said.

The system would work by transmitting minimum data to the 112 emergency call network. The data would give enough information to the emergency services to enable them to decide immediately on the type and size of rescue operation needed, in turn helping them to arrive faster, reduce the severity of injuries and cut the cost of traffic jams.

"Deploying the 112-based eCall system across the European Union (EU) will help to improve road safety in all 28 member states," said Sehnalova.

"The EP has repeatedly stressed that reducing deaths and the severity of injuries on the roads is its priority. We have an objective in the EU of cutting road deaths by 50 percent by 2020, and eCall as a public service, free of charge for all citizens, irrespective of the type of vehicle or its purchase price, will contribute to this common goal," she said.

MEPs also strengthened the draft law's data protection clause to ban tracking of eCall-equipped vehicles before an accident occurs. Under the new rules, the automatic call would give the emergency services only basic minimum data, such as the type of vehicle, the fuel used, the time of the accident, the exact location and the number of passengers.

The rules also say that eCall data gathered by emergency centers or their service partners cannot be transferred to third parties without explicit consent of the person concerned. Manufacturers will also have to ensure that the eCall technology allows the data gathered to be "fully and permanently deleted".

In addition, to the March 31, 2018 deadline, MEPs also secured an obligation for the European Commission to assess over the following three years whether eCall devices should be included in other vehicles, such as buses, coaches or trucks.

Separate rules, governing the infrastructure that EU member states must put in place by Oct. 1, 2017, to process eCalls, came into to force at the end of June 2014.

Currently, less than 1 percent of vehicles in the EU are equipped with private eCall systems, with numbers barely rising. These are mostly proprietary systems that do not offer EU-wide interoperability. Endit