Saving lives with in-car safety and emergency wireless alerting

12 February 2007, 3GSM World Congress Barcelona, Netsize the global leader for Mobile Business Solutions today announced that it’s customer PSA Peugeot Citroën who is using the Netsize Smart Access platform as part of their in-car wireless emergency call system has received official certification from the French department of Public Safety.

After conducting an audit, an independent certifier confirmed that PSA Peugeot Citroën’s system complies with the standards validated in July 2005 by the national conference of fire and emergency services (CNSIS). This certification recognizes the leading-edge expertise acquired by PSA Peugeot Citroën and its technical partners (Inter Mutuelles Assistance, Netsize and Steria) in managing this major road safety innovation.The emergency call system helps emergency services respond more quickly and efficiently by leveraging data transmitted by Peugeot and Citroën vehicles that are either involved in or witnesses to a road accident.

The emergency call system is now live in over 300,000 cars across France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Spain and Italy. The solution is scheduled to be also deployed in Austria and Portugal in 2007. 1440 emergency calls have been treated till date, among which 590 were automatically triggered and 1100 sent to emergency teams

The PSA Peugeot Citroën Solution is supported by the Netsize Smart Access Wireless Service Management, Connectivity and Messaging platform which is at the core of managing the entire service.

Serge Subiron, VP Business Solutions at Netsize commented “Netsize is proud to be the wireless partner for PSA Peugeot Citroën emergency call system which has received this important safety certification. This is the largest deployment of such an in-car emergency alerting solutions in Europe and we strongly believe that wireless service management solutions will be playing an important role in improving Road Safety and Transport.�

According to European Commission statistics, some 2,500 lives would be saved each year in the European Union if this type of system were extended to all vehicles on the road. The estimate for France ranges from 250 to 300 lives per year.

The solution was developed and delivered by Netsize in partnership with other PSA Peugeot Citroën partners including Steria (systems integrator), IMA (Inter Mutuelles Assistance), and Magneti Marelli (RT3-4 / Navidrive telematic platform).

The vehicles are equipped with an onboard telematics system that sends an SMS containing information on the type of vehicle, the exact location of the accident (determined by GPS) and the vehicle’s phone number. When possible, more extensive information on the number of people involved and the seriousness of their injuries is obtained once voice contact is established between the vehicle and the Inter Mutuelles Assistance (IMA) emergency hotline. A PSA Peugeot Citroën database also provides information on the type of fuel in the tank.

The Netsize Smart Access is the wireless service platform that enables seamless data communications across different network technologies and roaming across countries.

Smart Access provides differentiation between types of traffic and class of service, and integrated billing services. Enabling true fixedwireless convergence, the platform supports a wide range of channels and network types, such as SMS, GPRS/ EDGE, 3G/UMTS, IP over Tetra, Wi-Fi and WiMAX, and provides for seamless handover between IP technologies using Mobile IP. With Smart Access,customers have a single point of access to these different networks.

Source: Netsize