Spoiler Alert: Is the eCall emergency alerting system fulfilling its road safety promise?
The eCall system became mandatory in all new type-approved cars and light goods vehicles in the UK and EU from April 2018. Designed to expedite emergency response through automatic or manual crash alerts, eCall sends both a voice call and a data packet to emergency services, providing location, vehicle information and crash details.
Despite near-universal installation in new vehicles and a growing presence across the UK fleet, this review by Dr Nick Reed of Reed Mobility questions whether eCall is fulfilling its road safety potential.
Key achievements
- High adoption: eCall is present in over 99.5% of new cars sold in the UK, ensuring growing market penetration and expanding coverage over time.
- Standardisation: Deployment follows a harmonised EU-wide technical and regulatory framework, ensuring interoperability.
- Robust functionality: eCall offers a critical safety function, especially in rural or concealed crash scenarios, potentially saving lives by reducing the time to first response.
System limitations
Despite its promise, eCall’s impact remains limited by operational, technical and awareness-related issues:
- False alarms: High rates of false alarms (especially from manual activations) undermine trust and can increase the burden on emergency services. Common causes include button misuse, poor interface design, system faults and demonstration presses at dealerships. This issue also affects other devices (such as smartwatches and smartphones) offering emergency alert functionality.
- Limited understanding and training: Understanding of eCall’s function and value could be improved for both the public and emergency responders. The system is rarely discussed during vehicle sales or driver training, and most emergency call centre staff report minimal or no formal training.
- Emergency response integration: Although improvement work is ongoing, the Minimum Set of Data (MSD) transmitted with an eCall is not fully exploited by emergency services. The current Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) system, managed by BT and working to parameters specified by the 999-112 Liaison Committee, is limited in its ability to fully process and distribute eCall data effectively, particularly from third-party service providers (TPSPs).
- Data use and access issues: Concerns about data privacy and system constraints limit the ability of stakeholders, such as National Highways, to access or use eCall data for road safety interventions and further analysis. Legacy systems and interim standards (e.g. voice-transmitted data from third-party eCall providers) introduce the potential for delays and errors that could be avoided by automated transmission of data.
- Impact unproven: While theoretical and simulation-based studies suggest eCall could reduce fatalities by 4–8% (Sihvola et al., 2009), there is little real-world data post-mandate to verify actual outcomes.
Challenges ahead
- 2G/3G phase-out: From 2027, only 4G/5G-compatible eCall systems will be permitted in new vehicles. Without retrofitting of compatible systems, vehicles with older eCall systems (typically 2020 and earlier) will cease to offer emergency alert functionality when the 2G network is subsequently switched off (by 2033 at the latest).
- Infrastructure modernisation: Upgrades such as BT’s upgraded Enhanced Information System for Emergency Calls (EISEC2) and Next Generation eCall (NG-eCall) are planned, potentially offering richer data (e.g. video, medical information, real-time text (RTT) support), but these require co-ordination and investment by regulators, the emergency services and the emergency call service provider.
Recommendations
- Evaluate eCall effectiveness: Conduct a systematic study on eCall’s actual impact on crash outcomes, emergency response times and system efficiency in the UK.
- Workflow and data review: Review and optimise the full eCall workflow from the triggering of an alert to dispatch of the emergency services. Expand data sharing to include other responders like National Highways and other road authorities under strict privacy controls.
- Public and professional training: Develop awareness campaigns and integrate eCall education into driver training, vehicle sales and National Driver Offender Retraining Scheme (NDORS) courses. Provide emergency services with regular training and simulated drills.
- Tackle false alarms: Improve interface design (e.g. better SOS button placement). Ensure system faults are addressed during servicing; consider making eCall functionality part of MOT checks. Reduce misuse by standardising privacy setting interfaces that do not involve the eCall button.
- System modernisation: Support rapid deployment of EISEC2 and NG-eCall. Push for automated and electronic data exchange between TPSPs and PSAPs.
- Leverage eCall data: Use anonymised eCall data for broader road safety analytics (e.g. identifying crash hotspots, assessing manufacturer/system faults). Align with initiatives like International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) and potential artificial intelligence (AI) systems trained to predict and prevent crashes.
Conclusion
The eCall system is a powerful tool that can save lives by accelerating emergency responses to collisions involving vehicles fitted with it. However, there are improvements that could be made to the UK’s current implementation of eCall that could enable greater exploitation of underused data resources, deliver better understanding of eCall by users and call centre operatives, and reduce false alarm rates, thereby improving trust and efficiency. The recommendations provided outline how such improvements could be made.
