Half of fatalities are on rural roads

There are millions of eCall incident detectors on rural roads today; you just need to connect.

Around 19,800 people were killed in vehicle incidents in 2024 in the European Union. This is down by 3% from the previous year, but still equates to 54 people killed every day of the year. 52% of these fatalities were on rural roads, where roadside technology to detect incidents is largely absent.

Roadside technology such as induction loops dug into the road, radar detection systems and CCTV are powerful but costly to install and maintain. Neither are they fully reliable; devices fail, weather and debris can set them off, or they can fail to detect incidents. As the cost is high, roadside technology is concentrated on the roads with highest use and risk – the motorways and main roads. However, half of all deaths happen away from these roads.

Meanwhile, more and more vehicles are equipped with eCall. An eCall unit is a single vehicle incident detector. We estimate that around 11 million vehicles in the UK have eCall; that’s 11 million vehicle incident detectors driving around.

Unlike roadside technology, eCall works on any road. VESOS TeCall Alerts plug these detectors into control centre systems alongside other incident detection systems.

Roadside technology works for a few roads and all vehicles; eCall works for some vehicle and all roads. Neither alone are the answer, but together they form a compelling synergy.