ATX Joins Pilot Project to Promote Cross-Border eCall Solutions

HANNOVER, Germany, March 1 /PRNewswire/ -- ATX, one of the leading providers of in-vehicle, location-based services to the global automobile industry, announced in advance of its participation at CeBIT 2010 this week, its participation in a DEUFRAKO pilot project designed to test different eCall deployment solutions for locating vehicles involved in cross-border emergency situations between France and Germany. DEUFRAKO (www.deufrako.org) is an organization dedicated to funding bilateral (French and German) research projects.

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The project will be featured at CeBIT 2010 – the world's foremost tradeshow for the digital industry from March 2-6 at the Hannover Exhibition Center in Germany – in Hall 7, Booth A28. ATX is co-sponsoring the exhibit booth with ITS Niedersachsen, a consortium of automotive, telecommunications and public agencies involved in research and development which is coordinating German participation in the project.

The goal of the project is to analyze the differences in the French and German solutions for transmitting location-enabled emergency signals (eCalls) from vehicles, whether activated manually by motorists facing an emergency or automatically by in-vehicle crash sensors. Results from the study will be used to develop potential migration strategies for ensuring eventual pan-European cross-border standardization and interoperability for routing of eCalls.

"We are honored to be invited to participate in a project that has the potential to help accelerate the deployment of eCall in-vehicle emergency response, and thereby begin saving lives, by providing quicker response to severe accidents on European roads," said Arnaud de Meulemeester, ATX managing director.

De Meulemeester is also scheduled on 4 March to speak at the European eCall Implementation Workshop (Convention Center, room 18) on how traditional telematics or third-party service providers can leverage connected vehicle technology and applications already being deployed to dramatically expand a pan-European eCall system without having to resolve long-term issues regarding standards, deployment costs, or technical interfaces with local 1-1-2 emergency response centers.

ATX will also use its booth at CeBIT to demonstrate an easy-to-use, in-vehicle, human-to-machine interface that allows motorists to summon eCall assistance, as well as access real-time information and personalized services (i.e., roadside assistance, hotel reservations, weather forecast, available parking) through widgets and other applications that can be downloaded into the vehicle.

For more on ATX's initiatives in Europe, please visit www.atxg.com/europe.

ABOUT ATX: With operations in Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, and representative offices in Paris, France, and Dusseldorf, Germany, ATX (www.atxg.com) is one of the world's leading providers of customized connected vehicles (telematics) services to global automobile manufacturers. ATX services, among the first to be launched in the consumer vehicle market back in 1996, are provided to vehicle owners through the brand names of its customers: Toyota, Lexus, BMW, PSA Peugeot Citroen, Mercedes-Benz Canada, and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.  

Services by ATX provide enhanced safety, security and driving convenience to vehicle owners, and include location-specific emergency and roadside assistance, automatic collision notification, stolen vehicle recovery, remote diagnostics, and real-time traffic and navigation assistance.  ATX also customizes services to help automobile manufacturers and their affiliated dealerships use telematics data and multiple customer contact channels to reduce costs, enhance vehicle servicing, and more closely manage customer relationships and contacts with the vehicle through its lifetime.  

ATX has a heritage of partnering with European-based automakers to introduce innovative, Web-based services, having helped pioneer the first in-vehicle access to online content in 2001 and the first download of online content to a vehicle in 2008.

ATX is a division of Cross Country Automotive Services (www.crosscountry-auto.com), a leading provider of location-based automotive services.  

SOURCE ATX