eCall is an automatic emergency call system for motor vehicles, as required by the European Union. Devices installed in the vehicle are intended to automatically report a traffic accident to the single European emergency number 112 and, by speeding up the initiation of rescue measures, help to reduce the number of road deaths and the severity of road traffic injuries.
Since 2018, eCall has been mandatory for all new models of passenger cars (M1) and light commercial vehicles (N1), and in order for vehicles to continue to be sold and registered in the EU, car manufacturers must now approve their deployed eCall systems on the basis of EU requirements. The eCall tests defined in Regulation (EU) 2017/79 are decisive here:
According to Regulation (EU) 2017/78, Annex I / II, Part I, § 12.8.7, manufacturers must declare conformity with the eCall standards according to Article 5 (8) of Regulation (EU) 2015/758. The relevant eCall tests are defined in:
Regulation (EU) 2015/758 also defines that the tests for eCall certification should be carried out exclusively by a notified technical service.
In July 2018, the UN – R 144 directive also came into force. The directive defines the approval procedures for:
Depending on the type of approval, the scope of testing varies. In total, there are the following test areas:
However, UN – R 144 is not only valid for the countries of the European Union, but applies to up to 55 countries worldwide. Among them are Russia, Japan and Korea.
Our eCall experts created an assessment paper to compare the UNECE regulation UN-R 144 with the EU eCall regulations to address the following questions:
Pan-European eCall, ERA-GLONASS and eCall for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are based on GSM and UMTS (circuit switched). European mobile network operators plan GSM/UMTS shutdown and migration to LTE/5G soon.
Next Generation eCall, based on LTE/IMS eCall and offering unlimited data, multimedia and two-way data, is defined as the next evolution of the eCall technology and will be the subject of future EU regulation. The relevant NG eCall tests are defined in:
Already in August 2017 we were designated by the German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) as Technical Service for eCall and were the first laboratory in Europe to offer and carry out eCall approval. We were also the first laboratory to be designated by the KBA as Technical Service for UN-R 144. In addition, we have been working for several years on the standardisation of eCall test specifications and can draw on a wealth of practical experience from the large number of eCall approvals we have carried out.
With our extraordinary expertise for the eCall approval process and the technical know-how acquired over many years for the execution of the necessary tests for the approval, we are your number one contact when it comes to eCall certification.
