The Oberland rescue control center has counted 35 eCalls since the beginning of the year.
However, the majority of these are false alarms.
Still, she doesn't want to give up.
Geretsried – The Geretsried volunteer fire brigade responded three times on a Saturday in early February – each time under full alert.
The volunteers had to go home three times without having found an emergency.
In all cases, it was a so-called eCall – i.e. an emergency call via an automatic system in the car.
Each time it was a definite false alarm.
The majority were false alarms: car emergency assistants let the emergency services and fire brigade turn out for free
However, the fact that a car calls the fire brigade three times within a few hours without any reason is unusual. In the morning a car reported an emergency on Sudetenstrasse, four hours later the car made an emergency call on Johann-Sebastian-Bach- road off.
However, it was found on Künnekeweg – parked properly.
Shortly after midnight, the same vehicle guided the emergency services to Neuer Platz.
According to Michael Meyr, head of the Oberland integrated control center, 35 of these eCalls have already been received this year, the majority of which were false alarms.
There are various scenarios for how these emergency calls work: the driver can trigger them himself by pressing a button, or the system can make them automatically.
In both cases, the vehicle automatically establishes a voice connection to the control center.
If the inmate is responsive, he can explain what happened - and the control center can draw conclusions about which special and how many emergency services are needed.
eCall system declared an emergency three times in a row – technology is being revised
If no contact can be made with the driver, for example because he is unconscious, a rescue team from the fire brigade and the rescue service are alerted - as in Geretsried.
"However, it should be mentioned here that a new alert announcement is currently being made for Bavaria and that something may change here in the future," adds Meyr.
The system transmits "all relevant data that is available, such as the vehicle type, deployed airbags, chassis number and of course the location".
Read the latest news from Geretsried here.
There are also eCall systems that do not send the emergency call to 112, but to the vehicle manufacturer - in such a case, they pass the information on to the responsible rescue control center.
"With such emergency calls, we keep hearing complaints about the wrong position of the triggering car," reports ADAC technician Arnulf Thiele.
Emergency assistant in the car: False alarms attributed to transmission errors
This is either due to different coordinate systems or to transmission errors.
Call centers abroad, communication problems or accident locations that have been communicated orally are assigned incorrectly can become sources of error.
A wrong digit or transposed digits in a GPS indication can lead to the accident location being incorrectly stated by several kilometers.
Thiele: "Thanks to GPS, the locations are usually given with an accuracy of a few meters."
According to Meyr, it is very unusual for one and the same vehicle to trigger a false alarm several times in a row, as in Geretsried.
"In such a case, it should be checked by a specialist company or the system should be taken out of service." The driver himself cannot override the on-board eCall system.
Emergency assistance leaves room for improvement - automatic hazard warning lights
The experts agree on one thing: an optical sign could help to find the car.
"That would be absolutely helpful," agrees Erik Machowski, commander of the Geretsried fire department.
Not only when it comes to false alarms - if a driver leaves the road at night and ends up in the forest, this can save even more time when searching.
Despite the false alarms, the advantages of the automatic emergency call system outweigh the advantages for ILS manager Meyr.
"It's like almost all automatic hazard or accident detection systems," he says.
"Of course there are false alarms, but lives are also saved."
By the way: everything from the region is also available in our regular Wolfratshausen-Geretsried newsletter.
