eSafety Compendium

4.4 eCall Driving GroupDiscussions related to eCall deployment are carried out in the eSafety Forum Driving Groupon eCall. The eCall Driving Group, which is co-chaired by Michael Nielsen (ERTICO – ITSEUROPE) and Wolfgang Reinhardt (ACEA) was established by the European Commissionat the end of 2002.The key players involved in the Driving Group eCall activities are members of four large“constituencies”:• Automotive industry• Mobile telecommunication industry• Public emergency authorities and associated or cooperating service organisations• Public social security organisations and private insurance companiesThe eCall Driving Group is working on an integrated strategy for pan-European emergencyservices. These services will build on the location-enhanced emergency services beingimplemented in the Member States on the basis of the recently adopted Recommendationon the implementation of E-112 emergency number.“eCall” stands for “In-vehicle Pan-European automatic emergency call system”. Generatedeither manually by vehicle occupants or automatically via activation of in-vehicle sensors,eCall gives the precise coordinates of an accident’s location to the emergency services whichare responsible for the follow-up assistance.The eCall Driving Group was established to produce a framework architecture and abusiness model for eCall, and to define the roles for both the public and privatestakeholders. These include the Member States, the Commission, telecom operators, PSAPoperators, vehicle manufacturers, equipment suppliers, motorway operators, automobileclubs, insurance industry, service providers.The Driving Group produced a Memorandum of Understanding on the implementation ofeCall. The aim of the MoU is to ensure that eCall will work in any EU Member State. TheMoU binds the stakeholders in implementing the eCall together on the basis of commonapproved architecture and interface specifications, including the Minimum Set of Data(MSD). The MoU was signed by the European Commission, ACEA on behalf of theautomotive industry and the multi-sector partnership ERTICO in August 2004. The MoUhas now around 60 signatures. Since Greece, Italy, Lithuania and Slovenia signed it on 18October 2005 and Cyprus on 8 December 2005, seven Member States are now among thesignatories. Five additional Member States have announced that they will sign in the nearfuture.Page 220 of 490