eCall Driving Group meeting

Date: 25 April 2005

The eCall Driving Group met to define tasks and allocate responsibilities for 2005.

The EC’s Emilio Davila Gonzalez was on hand to provide feedback from the eSafety Forum’s High-Level meeting with the EU Member States in February. At this meeting, the Member States gave their support to the action plan regarding eCall implementation as well as to the aim of making eCall standard in all new vehicles by September 2009.

In Helsinki, it was decided that the European Commission should invite the insurance industry to a meeting, in order to better involve it in eCall activities. Another discussion point with the insurance industry is the possibility of creating financial incentives for implementing eCall.

The second result was that a meeting will be organised with the different network operators in the near future to prepare for the ETSI_MSG (European Telecommunications Standards Institute) kick-off meeting 3-4 May, regarding the standardisation of the technical solution for the transport protocol for voice and data. Currently, three solutions for this include UUS, USSD and DTMF.

Members of the eCall Driving Group – including its Co-chairs Wolfgang Reinhardt, ACEA Director of Regulatory Affairs and ERTICO Director of Development Michael Nielsen – also took part in the eCall expert meeting held the next day in Helsinki.

For more information, please visit the eCall Toolbox on the eScope website, http://www.escope.info/index.html?page=115&lang=en&PHPSESSID=ccc36fef462051c94c7ebff87741dd05