Vehicle Tracking: Intelligent cars to send automated emergency call in accidents

The European Union is introducing an automated emergency call system for all new cars that could save about 2,500 lives each year but sceptics argue that the system is too expensive and could be abused for vehicle tracking purposes.

By Reino Gevers

All new cars registered in Europe will have to be equipped with the eCall system as from 2009. Some manufacturers, notably Volvo, are already installing the system in current models.

Once the airbag sensors register a collision, a signal is automatically sent by the car's onboard computer to the nearest rescue station. At the same time data from the GPS navigation system provide rescuers with the exact location of the vehicle.

A mobile voice link is automatically created with the occupants of the vehicle. If nobody replies from the accident vehicle the rescue station immediately sends an alarm to an emergency doctor and ambulance.

Some 40,000 people die on European roads each year and the Europen Union is aiming to halve the figure with improved safety systems such as eCall.

"Between 2,500 and 7,000 deaths could be avoided if rescue teams could manage to reach an accident scene earlier," says European parliament legislator Dieter Lebrecht Koch, who has for years been campaigning for eCall.

Response time could be halved in remote rural areas, according to the proponents of the system. The European Automobile Club (ACE) calculates that annual costs of 4.5 billion euro (6.2 billion dollars) are minimal compared to savings of 26 billion euros in accident-related costs.

However, so far only nine European countries have signed a memorandum on implementing by 2009 nationwide emergency stations linked to eCall.

It is also expensive. Volvo's "On Call" system linked to an integrated mobile phone system costs 1,800 euros. BMW's SOS system is linked to a navigation system with Bluetooth technology that costs an extra 3,900 euros for the BMW 3-series.

But EU legislators believe the system will get cheaper as the date for compulsory installation nears and that it need not be linked to an expensive communication and navigation system. Legislator Koch believes prices can be lowered to about 150 euros per vehicle.

But data protection activists argue that there are no safeguards to prevent abuse of the system and that vehicles could be tagged and tracked all over Europe. It would also be a short step from linking the technology to mass surveillance and to combine it with satellite tracking road tolls.

Germany's automobile association ADAC therefore warned that the "eCall-System must not be allowed to permanently transmit position data to create tracking profiles. Position data must only be released manually or automatically to identify an accident vehicle for emergency services."

Michael Cramer, a Green legislator in the European parliament, says the party voted against compulsory introduction of eCall because there are cheaper and more effective ways of reducing road deaths such as applying zero tolerance for driving under the influence of alcohol.

"Every person should have the freedom to choose the eCall system or not. It is not the responsibility of the EU to make such technology compulsory," Cramer argues.