eCall for Heavy Goods Vehicles

eCall is the European in-vehicle emergency call system. The functionality required for an in-vehicle emergency call service for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) is largely similar to eCall for cars and vans. The specific requirements for HGVs include communicating information about the cargo carried by the vehicle to the public safety answering point (PSAP) and finding a suitable triggering mechanism for automated eCall for HGVs. The paper summarises the requirements for HGV eCall and drafts three architectural solutions for providing the PSAP access to information on cargo carried by the vehicle: a multi-party approach, a proxy approach, and a distributed system with authentication and authorisation of the HGV Information Service (HGV IS) and PSAP by trusted third parties. Finally, the paper examines the possibilities for interoperability with Next Generation eCall (NG-eCall) and ERA-GLONASS. The challenges to implementing the service and the needs for further research are also reviewed briefly.