Nokia to supply Ford with emergency location service

Nokia said Monday (Sept. 17) that its Location & Commerce unit will supply Ford Motor Co. with reference data for use with Ford’s Emergency Assistance technology when it is deployed in Europe.

Nokia said the reference data can be used to identify a driver’s location and determine the appropriate language required to alert local emergency services. The system works by sending automated voice messages and coordinates with local emergency medical and other services in the local language rather than routing messages through a call center.

The reference data’s “geofencing” capability also can identify regional language differences in countries like Belgium and Switzerland so that an accident location can be routed to the appropriate local emergency services center.

Nokia said its system speeds emergency calls by employing data compression techniques used to reduce the amount of data that needs to be processed.

Ford’s Emergency Assistance service is currently available on the SYNC platform installed in more than 4 million vehicles in the U.S. It is scheduled to be available in Europe later this year aboard Ford’s B-MAX multipurpose vehicle.

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