BRUSSELS, Belgium, -- ATX Group of Dusseldorf, Germany, the world's largest independent telematics services provider to the global automotive industry, is among 30 major organizations named today by the European Emergency Number Association (EENA) to a new Advisory Board dedicated to reinforcing the advocacy organization's leading role as the "Voice of 1-1- 2" in the European Union.
This new Board represents a variety of stakeholders -- politicians, professional user organizations and technology and solution providers -- committed to enhancing emergency response across Europe, the implementation and operation of a pan-European 1-1-2 number (similar to 9-1-1 in North America). A list of Board members is available at www.eena.org .
ATX's menu of Telematics services includes monitoring and verifying location-based eCalls from vehicles, including advanced automatic collision notification, which provides emergency responders with crash severity information aggregated from various in-vehicle sensors along with vehicle location (via satellite positioning), vehicle description, direction of travel, and a voice connection into the vehicle. Since its inception, ATX has worked closely with Public Safety Answering Points (PSAP) in both North America and Europe, bridging emergency responders with motorists in need regardless of the level of technology in the local PSAP or the native language of the PSAP or motorist.
"We applaud EENA's leadership in bringing together a wide variety of organizations with a variety of expertise dedicated to one major purpose - enhancing public safety for all citizens across the European Union," said Gary Wallace, ATX Vice President of Corporate Relations.
Seventeen years after the creation of the European emergency number 1-1-2 by the European Union, the latest Eurobarometer survey reported that 78% of Europeans remain unaware of the 3 digits that can save their lives everywhere in the EU.
Diana Wallis, Vice-President of the European Parliament and Member of newly formed EENA Advisory Board, admits that she did not know the European emergency number 112 before getting involved with EENA. "We need a large publicity campaign to make sure that all Europeans know this number," she added.
"Together with all the members of EENA Advisory Board we will highlight and award citizens and emergency services who have contributed to a better 1-1-2 during the 1-1-2 Awards Ceremony on June 3rd," said Diana Wallis. "We want to highlight some great initiatives undertaken throughout the EU that will help to raise the awareness to those authorities which have not yet fully engaged in improving their 1-1-2 service. The participation of Commissioner Viviane Reding in this event also shows the positive will of the European Commission to promote good practices in this field," she concluded.
Through a new committee organisation operating under direction from the Advisory Board, EENA intends to promote the European emergency number 1-1-2 by launching a Europe-wide 1-1-2 Community Education project, create a network of 1-1-2 First Responders active in their countries via EENA 112 Chapters, contribute to official legislative documents related to 1-1-2, and improve recognition of and response to 1-1-2 calls through a 1-1-2 Excellence Centre project.
"Large support from the European Parliament to improve the 1-1-2 service has provided us with a great opportunity to gather all actors that that can contribute to its improvement," said Olivier Paul-Morandini, President and Founder of EENA. "Our whole emergency communications and response service today is facing great challenges. Caller-location is still not available to several emergency services, multilingual calls are not appropriately handled, and the number of false calls to 112 remains very high due to the lack of education campaigns. As a result, intervention times are much too high with regards to what can be expected in the EU," he added.
Dr. Demetrios Pyrros, Chairman of EENA Advisory Board, noted that "By working together I am convinced that we can better publicise the number 112, help the authorities with our expertise, and conduct some major pilot projects to ensure an excellent answer to 112 calls."
Dieter Nuessler, President of FEU - the Federation of the European Union Fire Officer Associations - and Member of EENA Advisory Board, added, "One of the main objectives of EENA Advisory Board is to express the needs of emergency responders so that the Voice of 112 can be heard in Brussels."
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