Towards Europe-wide safer, cleaner and efficient mobility: the first Intelligent Car report

The European Parliament adopted by 417 votes to 6, with 5 abstentions, a resolution on the Commission’s Communication entitled “Towards Europe-wide Safer, Cleaner and Efficient Mobility: The First Intelligent Car Report”.

The own initiative report had been tabled for consideration in plenary by Zita GURMAI (PES, HU) on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.

The Parliament believes that intelligent vehicle systems can help to reduce congestion, pollution and the number and seriousness of road accidents, but that their market penetration rate is still too low. It suggests that the Commission pay special attention to countries where the availability of intelligent systems is still very low.

The 14 Member States which have not yet signed the eCall memorandum are encouraged to do so as soon as possible, preferably before the middle of 2008, in order to encourage the rapid introduction of this potentially life-saving feature. MEPs stress the need for the Commission to further develop the regulatory framework for the full harmonisation of the standard emergency call (112) as well as for the eCall (E112) EU-wide. Furthermore, they recall that the Commission's stated aim is to achieve a 100% take-up of electronic stability control for all new vehicles from 2012 onwards.

The Member States and the Commission are called upon to:

• insist on the incorporation of particular technical devices in every car, such as reduced-weight seats or tyres, engine heat accumulators or brake energy regeneration, which offer potential for reducing CO₂ emissions;
• develop guidelines in order to encourage Member States to introduce incentives for both ecological and vehicle safety features;
• continue their efforts to devise tax incentives for the purchase of vehicles which are environmentally adapted and are equipped with intelligent safety devices. The incentives introduced must be combined with prevention and road safety training measures for drivers.

In addition, Member States, the Commission and the car industry are called to provide brief, clear and comprehensible information as part of awareness-raising campaigns in order to reach the largest audience possible, including car dealerships and driving schools, and inform them about intelligent vehicle systems.

The resolution urges the car industry to take into account recent car safety features when designing new vehicles and also to provide for devices to measure and display energy consumption and environmental data, such as real CO₂ and particulate emissions.

MEPs note that the use and availability of portable or nomadic ICT-based device systems has increased and that the market for these devices continues to grow steadily. They call on stakeholders to work on implementing measures to ensure the safe use and fixing of such devices, and to facilitate human-machine interaction.

Lastly, the Commission is called upon to develop methodology for measuring the impact of ICTs on CO₂ emissions and/or to coordinate and disseminate existing findings.