The UAE Cabinet on Tuesday approved the technical regulations for the improvement of emergency communications in vehicles called e-Call system that is aimed at cutting the response time of emergency services by 40 per cent.
The e-Call system, which is installed in some vehicles, works by sending emergency message to the police as soon as in-vehicle sensors detect a serious accident. Information include vehicle model, location, fuel type and number of passengers inside the vehicle.
The aim of updating the e-Call system, which was first introduced in Abu Dhabi in 2021, is to cut down the death toll on the roads by 2 to 10 per cent and reduce serious injury cases by 2 to 15 per cent.
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It also works by providing the best response time to emergency calls, which is four minutes only.
Meanwhile, the number of fatalities on UAE roads rose by 3 per cent last year compared to 2022, according to the open data released in May by the Ministry of Interior (MOI). There were 352 road fatalities across the country in 2023, as against 343 deaths registered in 2022. The 2023 numbers, however, were 8 per cent lower than the 381 fatalities recorded in 2021.
Rescue in few minutes
The e-Call system or Fazaa was developed by the UAE Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) and the former Emirates Authority for Standardisation and Metrology (which was eventually merged into the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology) in collaboration with police authorities.
Like in Abu Dhabi, a similar feature was initially released in Dubai Police called AML (Advanced Machine Location) that enabled mobile phones to notify the police after a crash. The difference was in the case of AML, a passenger had to dial 999 for the information to go through while in e-Call system, the car can make the call. It can also be activated manually with the push of a button.
When the accident report is sent, officers in the operations room establish a call through the system to speak to passengers to check if they are conscious. Rescue team will then be dispatched to reach the site of the accident in few minutes.