eSafety Support Campaigns at European Parliament

Creation date: 27 February 2008

23 February 2008, eSafety Cocktail ferments discussion among European decision makers on the “Intelligent Car Initiative”.
 
On the occasion of the first debate of the report on the "Intelligent Car" in the Transport Committee of the European Parliament, Hungarian MEP Zita Gurmai strongly advocated the intelligent car initiative.  The aim of the event was to draw attention on how to make European roads and mobility safer, cleaner and smarter.

The Intelligent car initiative was received positively by MEP’s. The Committee backed the full-scale roll-out of eCall by 2010 and encouraged the Member States who have not yet signed the eCall Memorandum of Understanding to do so, preferably before mid 2008. Other safety measures supported by the report include the 100% availability of the Electronic Stability Control technology for 2012, the improvement of human machine interaction of nomadic devices and the need to develop cooperative systems based on vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication.

The issue of affordability and consumer awareness of these new features was also raised, as intelligent transportation systems will only be fully deployed if the consumer is aware of their benefits and if he can afford them. The committee urged stakeholders to take appropriate measures in this direction.

Following the Committee meeting decision-makers and stakeholders were invited to share a cocktail, whilst further information on the First Intelligent Car Report and eSafety were presented in an affable setting. Mrs. Gurmai stated in her  opening speech: "As responsible European decision makers, we can possibly have one priority: human life".

Featured speakers included also MEP Dieter-Lebrecht Koch, Hermann Meyer (ERTICO – ITS Europe, Chief Executive Officer) and  Rosalie Zobel (EC DG INFSO).
 

For a detailed report about the event, click here