Development and Integrated Demonstration Tests of Korean eCall System

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a Korean eCall system that can accurately grasp the situation of a traffic accident and analyze the expected effect of through integrated demonstration tests. The eCall system was designed to collect the information required by emergency management agencies, such as the location history immediately before and after the accident, the severity of the occupants' injuries, and in-vehicle image, etc. To confirm the interoperability and practicality of the developed eCall system, integrated demonstration tests were conducted in all regions of Korea for approximately five months, from June to October 2019. As a result of the integrated demonstration tests, the communication success rate was 98.76% for highways, and it was predicted that it could be shortened by 3 minutes and 38 seconds from the spot of traffic accidents to the arrival of hospitals. In the case of general roads, the communication success rate was 99.45%, and it was predicted that it could be shortened by 1 minute and 22 seconds from the spot of traffic accidents to the arrival of hospitals. Based on this reduced time, its expected effect on the number of deaths and socio-economic costs of traffic accidents in Korea from 2005 to 2019 was analyzed. According to the results, deaths could be reduced by 1,953 and socio-economic costs by about $701,002,000. The expected effects were also calculated considering the eCall IVS penetration rate from 2022 to 2031; deaths are expected to decrease by 200 and socio-economic costs will decrease by about $71,800,000. Based on these results, I propose the need for legislation to adopt and extend eCall systems with the functions of integrated management for traffic accident data such as duration between accident time and hospital arrival time, severity of injury suffered by occupants, and duration of treatment.