e-Call impact assessment study

eCall is an initiative giving automatic and prompt notification to the emergency services of vehicles involved in a crash situation. This in-vehicle emergency call service is designed to speed up emergency response to road accidents, with benefits for both casualties and other road users. The emergency call can either be made manually by vehicle occupants or automatically when in-vehicle sensors, such as when airbag deployment is activated.

In order to move further towards the implementation of this service across Europe the EC needed a new study to investigate market introduction, legal and liability issues, and identify the costs and benefits.

The specific objectives of this study are to:

• assess all impacts and benefits of eCall, also fully covering the indirect benefits due to lessened congestion, fewer secondary accidents, improved operations of rescue services, traffic management, national economy, etc;
• assess all costs of eCall;
• assess all other key deployment issues related to eCall; and
• to compare the three scenarios of do nothing/voluntary agreement/mandatory instalment with regard to their socio-economic profitability.

The longer term objectives of the work to the European Commission are to utilise the results in deciding on further steps to accelerate the deployment of pan-European eCall. In addition to this, the study will provide help to inform decision making by other stakeholders in the eCall service chain. For example better and more up to date information on the costs and benefits of eCall will help to inform those Member States which are not yet committed to eCall deployment.

The organisations collaborating together on this project with TRL (coordinator) include; TNO - Netherlands, VTT - Finland, Ertico - Belgium, Inter-ut XXT- Hungary, eSafety Aware - Belgium, Vrije Universitiet - Netherlands.

Duration and Funding
December 2008-May 2009, Funding through the European Commission 7th Framework Programme of Information Society Technologies

Consortium
Coordinator: TRL
Partners: TNO - Netherlands, VTT - Finland ,Ertico - Belgium, Inter-ut XXT- Hungary, eSafety Aware - Belgium, Vrije Universitiet - Netherlands