EU News: eCall Implementation Platform

Date: 08 October 2009

The third meeting of the European eCall Implementation Platform took place on 1 October 2009 in Brussels, chaired by Hermann Meyer, CEO of ERTICO and Anu Laurell, from the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Finland.

The European eCall implementation Platform was set up a few months ago to give the last push to make eCall a reality in Europe. The Platform is a coordination body bringing together and supporting relevant stakeholders interested in and committed to implementing the public eCall service at European level.

The third meeting focused essentially on the first results of the Platform Task Forces' activity. Every Task Force leader presented the status of their work. Some activities appeared to be more critical in terms of support for the implementation, namely the production of Implementation Guidelines, running of pilots at national and international level, and clarification of how to implement the eCall discriminator in the mobile networks.

The Commission shared the results of the eCall Impact Assessment Study with the Platform, commissioned at the beginning of the year and finalised in June 2009. The study showed benefits varying from 1% to 8% in terms of lives saved, depending on the Member State and areas. Positive impacts are also identified in other areas. However, due to the current lack of essential data, the overall recommendations are to carry out in-depth analysis of at least 500 cases per countries in order to be able to extract scientific conclusions.

The Platform meeting was also the opportunity for the Commission to present the last Communication on eCall and to clarify the EU’s position towards possible future regulatory actions in the absence of significant progress and clear commitment from the Industry and the Member States in the eCall implementation by the end of 2009. The recent Commission Communication on the subject states:

“It now is the time for deployment.  We cannot afford any additional delay. If no progress is made within the voluntary approach by the end of 2009, regulatory measures could be envisaged by the European Commission.”

 
The meeting closed with an interesting presentation of the German situation in view of the eCall implementation. This was the opportunity to understand what type of national issues the Member States are currently facing when deciding about the deployment of the service. It also showed that national and international pilots across Europe planned for next year could fundamentally help the decision-makers to assess the different solutions.