EC presents eSafety road map

The European Commission presented a road map for safer and intelligent vehicles at the ITS World Congress in Madrid. Erkki Liikanen, commissioner for enterprise and information society, presented a detailed action plan for eSafety over the years 2004-2008. It aims for rapid take-up of active safety systems using advanced information and communications technology.

As part of the pedestrian protection agreement, the automotive industry will equip all new motor vehicles with anti-lock breaking systems (ABS) from 1 July 2004. Liikanen said he wants the industry to seriously consider electronic stability programmes (ESP) as the next standard safety features in all vehicles in 2005. 2006 should be a realistic target year to introduce eCall, which allows vehicle safety-related information to be passed to a public service answering point in the event of an accident.