GPS World, January 2012

THE BUSINESS TRANSPORTATION Telematic Future eCall Insurance Drive Share Moni Malek Consider two notable developments in 2011 that will influence the development of consumer transportation China became the largest manufacturer of automobiles producing more than 18 million vehicles easily overtaking Europe and North America Smartphone volume shipments surpassed the volume of laptops and desktop PCs combined Reflecting these two rising economic rockets the November Munich Telematics show drew its largest attendance yet 500 plus participants and a greatly expanded exhibit area The rising dominance of smartphones one participant observed that they are taking over the world will have a big impact on how users expect to access or view their telematics data that is any wireless information accessed by them while in their car Developers and manufactures used to have a problem regarding which system to support but with Android now at more than 50 percent of smartphones share it is becoming the de facto first choice standard and will probably become the user interface model eCall Also in 2011 the European Union finally mandated eCall the emergency call system in automobiles that sends vehicle position to emergency services after a crash Unfortunately the mandate is for 2015 I guess this gives them a chance to use the European satnav system Galileo which hopefully may have something to offer hopefully by then This year the Russians leapfrogged the Western Europeans and mandated their own version of eCall known as ERA for 2013 It will use GLONASS the Russian satnav system which unlike Galileo is operational now Of course GPS is still employed and the real EMERGENCY CALL IN PROGRESS triggered by SOS button in PSA Peugeot Citroens roof panel inset photo benefit today is using GLONASS plus GPS in a multi constellation fix mode for higher reliability especially in urban areas compared to GPS alone At the Munich Telematics show it was clear that the Russian mandate has put wind into the telematics emergency call markets sails From the Russian company Cesars presentation we learned that following road accidents in Russia 14 percent of car occupants die compared to 2 percent in the United States Getting emergency support to the scene more quickly is critical to reducing fatalities and on this basis Russia has got some catching up to do You would think that everyone would be rushing to get more safety and as one market research presenter said it comes high on the user wish list Another presenter stated that while people may desire it they seem reluctant to pay for it at first As an historical example initially when people had the option of paying for airbags as an extra it was practically never taken as an option Now it is standard in all cars for drivers and passengers Think about it would you now buy a car without an airbag PSA Peugeot Citroen the big French car company shows the way with a version of eCall in their cars that doesnt lose money There is a big debate about who gets called when a crash happens Is it the public service access points PSAPs or third party services TPS Peugeot favours the TPS model which can filter the more common breakdown and false alarms from true crash calls to be forwarded to the emergency services at PSAPs While eCall initially favoured PSAP the trend seems to support Peugeots decision and TPS The PSA eCall also does not support the so called in band modem which allows crash position data to be sent over a voice call on the eCall box by encoding the data into a speech like signal The modem theory is you need to keep the voice call open to keep talking to the person in the automobile According to PSA apart from the issue of patents with the in band modem it seems that 30 percent of the data is lost and 40 percent of the PSAPs in Germany cannot handle it GPRS is the best way of sending crash position data with SMS text message as a back up As for voice most people get out of their car after an accident and do not speak on the eCall box I guess if people are unconscious and are not able to get out of the car GPS World January 2012 www gpsworld com 30