The automatic notification system is designed to enable more rapid and better-informed emergency response to motor vehicle crashes. The system provides authorities with automatic collision notification, and information such as location and crash severity from in-vehicle devices. If we can reduce emergency response times significantly with a system of this type, we could stand to save many lives and reduce disability. When a crash occurs, Mayday Plus relays information from the vehicle about its location, direction of crash impact, the vehicle s final resting position, and the change in velocity lost during the crash. After transmitting this data, the system opens a direct voice connection to passengers in the car.
Response time is critical in our rural areas.
Sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the ACN project developed crash severity reporting capabilities. Mayday Plus has built off of the earlier test by developing a system that allows emergency responders to receive emergency information directly from in-vehicle devices. Mayday devices are available to consumers today. There is more death, injury and economic loss caused by vehicle crashes every year than caused by the Gulf War, Hurricane Andrew, the 1993 Midwest Floods and the Northridge California Earthquake combined. Ultimately, officials hope that systems such as the one developed for the Mayday Plus project will lead to operational, integrated systems that help overcome problems such as inaccurate crash location, delayed notification and unreliable eyewitness accounts all of which delay emergency responses and further endanger crash victims.