Skip to main content

FIA welcomes adoption of eCall legislation

The European Parliament has voted to adopt the eCall type-approval legislation, mandating emergency call technology as a standard feature in all new vehicles from 2018. Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) Region I has welcomed the outcome, while also regretting the three-year delay in implementation. Thierry Willemarck, president of FIA Region I, said: “Road safety has triumphed today. eCall has finally passed through all the necessary steps and will become mandatory in 2018. However, I hope
April 29, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
The European Parliament has voted to adopt the eCall type-approval legislation, mandating emergency call technology as a standard feature in all new vehicles from 2018. Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) Region I has welcomed the outcome, while also regretting the three-year delay in implementation.

Thierry Willemarck, president of 8054 FIA Region I, said: “Road safety has triumphed today. eCall has finally passed through all the necessary steps and will become mandatory in 2018. However, I hope that this can serve as an example to the European Institutions in the lives lost while the negotiations continued. When there is a proven case for lives saved, technologies must be swiftly implemented. However, we are pleased to see that there is a possibility to empower consumers through the 1690 European Commission’s mandate to examine open, secure standardised platforms that could be a great step forward for future connected car services in an open and competitive market.”

Following a decade of negotiation, the final eCall legislation is a balanced outcome that includes a mandate to the Commission to consider interoperable, standardised, and secure and open‐access network for the eCall communication. This has the potential to ensure that users widely benefit from new connectivity features of their vehicles thanks to eCall. It can also ensure that consumers eventually make the best use of their personal data for additional connected car services.

In a positive step for the protection of consumer data, the legislation stipulates that eCall data gathered by emergency centres or their service partners must not be transferred to third parties without the explicit consent of the person concerned. Manufacturers will also have to ensure that the eCall technology design permits full and permanent deletion of data gathered.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • New solutions to old problems set to cut emergency response times
    April 30, 2015
    David Crawford looks at the latest developments in emergency response. Ensuring speedier reactions to transport and travel crises is becoming increasingly important. US statistics suggest that as many as 1,000 ‘saveable’ lives can be lost each year in major cities because of operational defects in their SOS operations.
  • Atlanta ponders Mobility as a Service for seamless transit
    June 29, 2018
    Drivers in Atlanta spent 70 hours in peak-time traffic jams last year. As the MaaS Market conference moves to the US’s fourth most congested city, we ask how Mobility as a Service can help. Colin Sowman winds down his window to listen. It is not by accident that ITS International’s first MaaS Market conference outside London is being hosted in Atlanta. The event is being supported by Georgia State Road & Tollway Authority and the City of Atlanta – and again not without a reason as metro Atlanta is looking
  • ASECAP widens its influence and fosters debate in Dubrovnik
    August 5, 2013
    Jason Barnes reports from the ASECAP Days 2013 event, which took place in Dubrovnik. ASECAP, the European tolling association held its 41st annual Study and Information Days event in Dubrovnik, Croatia, which attracted more than 200 figures from the road infrastructure sector in Europe and beyond. A series of presentations over two days brought attendees up to date with developments in a variety of policy and technology fields and discussed a number of developing and new topics, such as GNSS-based tolling a
  • US braces itself for congestion pain
    February 6, 2020
    Mary Scott Nabers, author of Inside the Infrastructure Revolution: A Roadmap for Building America, looks at how different US states are embracing the need for public transport investment