2007 eCall standardisation report

Creation date: 20 December 2007

eCall standardisation activities and policy issues report progress and development.

Work in defining eCall standards has progressed over the course of 2007 in several areas. In the standardisation of the transmission the eCall minimum set of data (MSD) from the in-vehicle system to the PSAP, ETSI MSG analysed the SMS solution and the in-band modem existing in the standard, the Cellular Text Modem (CTM). It concluded that none of the solutions complied with the eCall requirements, noting that SMS with standard routing cannot guarantee timely delivery of the data. And although it is being used successfully by private services in Europe, commercial agreements with third parties are needed. It also saw CTM as too slow to satisfy the time requirements. Therefore, 3GPP will start the analysis of the other in-band modem not included in the standard. It will compare their performances to assess the compliance to the requirements, and expects to finish this process by summer 2008.

A proposal has been made in ETSI on the way to implement the eCall discriminator that allows the differentiation between 112 calls from mobile phones and 112 eCalls.

CEN TC 278 Working Group 15 achieved consensus on the minimum set of data content and the draft standard CEN 15722 was sent for ballot for vote/comment by national committees. The voting period will end on 11 January 2008.

CEN has also made advances in the eCall operational requirements of the pan-European eCall service. The experts of the Working Group 15 started the discussion of a draft document based on the recommendations of the eCall Driving Group. A new working item has been proposed on third parties supporting eCall, which will deal with private services. The input of the Service Providers Working Group will be valuable for this new item. CEN’s next meeting is scheduled to take place in Brussels on 5-6 February 2007.

On the policy front, the European Parliament stressed its support to the eCall initiative in its mid-term review of the European Road Safety Action Programme, and called Member States to sign the eCall Memorandum of Understanding. 16 European countries and several relevant private organisations signed the eCall MoU in 2007, with more to come in 2008. The Commission adopted a new Intelligent Car Initiative on September 2007, with five concrete actions on eCall, including the start of negotiations with automobile manufacturers associations (ACEA, JAMA and KAMA). Depending on the progress, new regulatory actions on the implementation of eCall may be envisaged in 2008.

Finally, the eSafety Steering Group has proposed the creation of a European Implementation Platform to unite eCall MoU signatories and representatives of the main stakeholder associations and Member States to follow-up the implementation plan and address the last open issues. The Platform should start activities beginning 2008.

For more information, please visit the eCall Toolbox or contact info@esafetysupport.org