The European Commission has contracted a consortium to carry out an assessment of the potential impact of the introduction of the eCall service in Europe. The specific objectives of the work are to: assess all impacts and benefits of eCall, also fully covering the indirect benefits due to lessened congestion, fewer secondary accidents, improved operations of rescue services, traffic management, national economy, etc; assess all costs of eCall; assess all other key deployment issues related to eCall; and to compare the three scenarios of do nothing/voluntary agreement/mandatory instalment with regard to their socio-economic profitability. The longer term objectives of the work to the European Commission are to: utilise the results in deciding on further steps to accelerate the deployment of pan-European eCall; and solve the urgent deployment issues requiring to be settled. This final report has been prepared for the European Commission according to the requirements of the specification. It describes the methods used and the results of the analysis. The report includes a review of previous studies and the Methodology for analysis. The results of four in-depth country studies for Finland, United Kingdom, Netherlands and Hungary are examined as well as data from other European countries. The ethical, moral and economic issues are covered in addition to the legal and liability ones. Finally a socio-economic assessment of the policy options and resulting recommendations to the European Commission is made. (Author/publisher)
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