According to the Department for Transport (DfT), there were over 25 000 road accidents resulting in death or serious injury in the UK in 2008. Being able to despatch emergency services to the scene of an accident as quickly as possible can mean the difference, literally, between life and death.
Clearly, for emergency services to be informed, a 999 call must be made, either by parties involved in the crash or witnesses to the crash. But what happens if the accident occurs in the middle of the night, when there are no witnesses and if the occupants of the vehicle are unable to make the call? In extreme cases, people have been known to die, not from injuries sustained from the accident itself, but from hypothermia as they have been trapped inside the vehicle on a cold night for many hours.
At the beginning of 2000, the European Commission introduced an initiative called eCall. This is a Europe-wide scheme for all new vehicles to be fitted with a ‘black box’ which allows a crash victim to make an emergency call, and at the same time sends a packet of data giving precise information on the vehicle, its location and direction of travel. The control unit can also monitor the vehicle’s systems and, if it senses airbag deployment, it can make the emergency call automatically. If an automatic call is received at the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), a trained operator calls the vehicle back in an attempt to speak to the occupants and establish the seriousness of the accident. An unanswered call would be a clear indication in itself.
The eCall system currently uses the GSM network to facilitate both the voice and data elements of the call. To ensure the two parts remain tied together, an in-band modem is required (both in the vehicle and at the PSAP), which transmits the voice and data elements over the same channel. Once the call is set up, there is a four-second slot for the transmission of the data, which then switches into a voice call. If the channel cannot be established, no communication is possible.
In parallel to the eCall project, a number of European car manufacturers such as BMW and Volvo, have implemented their own proprietary systems. Unlike eCall, these systems use SMS to transmit the data part of the call, and equipment at the call centre links it with the voice element. The details are then passed onto the PSAP.
The EC estimates Europe-wide implementation of eCall could save 2500 lives a year, and yet there is still no system in place. This is largely because of the time it has taken to reach agreement on a communications standard for 25+ countries. Other issues include:
- liability. Who is responsible for the maintenance of the eCall service and in-vehicle equipment?
- numbering. Will network operators be able to support all the new MSISDN numbers that might be required to support the eCall service?
- language. The scheme has to ensure the PSAP operator can communicate with the vehicle occupants in their own language given that they could be holidaymakers.
The EC has a target of 2014 for full deployment, meaning all PSAPs should be equipped to handle eCall and, significantly, all new vehicles sold in the EU must be sold eCall-ready. 20 EU member countries and three other European countries so far have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Notable exceptions are France and the UK.
In the UK, there is a different method of handling emergency calls that uses a two-tier system instead of the single level used in most of Europe. However, this technical and process issue can be overcome, and is not the main reason why the UK hasn’t signed. In 2006, the DfT commissioned an independent review which concluded the benefits of such a system could not justify the expense. As such, the UK has not made it mandatory for all new vehicles to be fitted with eCall. However, the infrastructure is in place in the UK to allow emergency services to respond to eCalls.
At the recent Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) conference in Brussels, it was recognised that the adoption of eCall is a priority for member states. However, voluntary adoption of the eCall service has not been successful to date, and the EC will now need to consider mandating the service on those members in order to meet its objectives.
What of the future? It is a small step from eCall to various other non-emergency implementations of in-vehicle telemetry. Linked to eCall is bCall, the 'b' meaning breakdown. The benefits of sending precise location details to a breakdown service are obvious, and how long will it be before your new car can self-diagnose a fault and book itself in for a service at your local dealer?