The UK’s lead firefighter for road rescue has welcomed the news that real time road crash data could soon be made available to the emergency services, helping to speed up collision response times and save lives – describing it as a ‘breakthrough’.
In the event of a collision, the TeCall system, which is about to be piloted, will provide detailed information about the vehicles involved to the fire service, police, paramedics and highway operators, almost instantly.
Dan Quin, chief fire officer for Surrey Fire and Rescue Service and the National Fire Chief Council’s (NFCC) lead for road safety and road rescue, said: “I am delighted that Surrey Fire and Rescue Service are working with partners to incorporate the call data from eCall technology into our emergency response.
“This breakthrough will revolutionise our ability to serve and protect the community. We are pleased to finally be accessing this invaluable data, which has been available for some time.”
Developed by VESOS Solutions, TeCall will immediately analyse e-Call connected vehicle data, available from the majority of UK cars and vans, providing emergency services with:
- A vehicle’s exact location
- Vehicle make and model
- Vehicle fuel type, or if it is electric – for example, collisions involving electric vehicles require additional fire tenders due to increased risk
- Number of occupants
- If vulnerable people are on board
eCall is automatically activated in the event of an incident when the airbags are deployed. It can also be manually activated by the driver or passenger by pressing the eCall SOS button.
Since 2018, eCall has been mandatory on all new approved cars and vans sold in Europe and the UK, yet the safety feature and the data it gathers, ‘is still largely unknown and has been unutilised by the authorities’.
The project, which will run for six months, will be supported initially by Surrey and Warwickshire fire and rescue services, with others across the country targeted to take part.
Chief fire officer Quin added: “The wealth of information provided by eCall data will enable us to make better-informed decisions, respond more quickly to incidents, and ultimately save more lives.
“We are grateful for this opportunity and are eager to embrace the future of emergency response with this technology.”
So after having years in development and being available for 5 years since 2018 but not used there is now going to be a 6 month trial in Surrey to “embrace the future”. I am sorry, but its actually “embracing the past”. I am afraid this typifies the UK’s poor adoption of new technology which seems to be developing faster than our ability to understand and exploit it.
Its the same with so many areas such as e-scooters, speed enforcement technology, ISA and others. The DfT plods along merrily. The lack of road casualty targets is another symptom of the systemic complacency we see in the transport establishment.
Rod King, Lymm
+3
“Since 2018, eCall has been mandatory on all new approved cars and vans sold in Europe and the UK, yet the safety feature and the data it gathers, ‘is still largely unknown and has been unutilised by the authorities’” True – am I the only one who didn’t know this feature has been mandatory on vehicles since 2018? I wonder how many vehicle owners don’t know about this feature on their vehicles which can, incidentally, also be manually deployed by the vehicle occupants if necessary. I don’t recall any publicity in the media about this important -potentially life-saving – feature.
Hugh Jones, Cheshire
+1