EUROWATCH expands coverage to 40 countries

EUROWATCH has added Ukraine and Croatia to its network and responded to customer demand for greater safety by adding eCall to its services. It now provides customers with access to police and emergency services across 40 countries.

Over 1.5 million automobiles are stolen each year in Europe with an estimated loss of €22 billion. A further 200,000 commercial vehicles and their cargoes are stolen each year with an estimated loss of €8 billion. This represents a significant cost to companies and consumers across Europe. Auto crime and Freight crime are now large scale industries run by sophisticated, international gangs controlling all aspects of their ‘value chain’. This ranges from acquiring detailed intelligence through to the theft, dispersal and resale of goods and vehicles via international channels. In particular these gangs exploit the ease of passage that exists across national borders within Europe and the limited level of cross‐border police coordination.

EUROWATCH counters this activity by providing a seamless service that spans borders. In particular it utilises unique technology to connect all types of GPS tracking system through to police in each country providing them with real‐time data on the location of stolen vehicles. This has resulted in recovery rates of almost 100% for stolen vehicles and over 90% for stolen freight of against an industry average of about 30%. eCall is a project for bringing rapid assistance to drivers involved in vehicle accidents anywhere in the European Union by 2011. It aims to provide automatic crash notification with GPS coordinates to local emergency services. However, local emergency services generally lack the infrastructure and thus capability to process these messages. EUROWATCH bridges this gap by processing eCall messages and notifying local emergency services through its established pan‐European network.

Peter Vyvyan‐Robinson, Managing Director of EUROWATCH said “Since launching in 2002,

EUROWATCH has become the leading service provider in Europe for protecting premium cars,

commercial vehicles and their cargoes. It remains unique in what it does and its continuing

expansion will soon see it covering regions beyond Europe”.

Source: Transportweekly