GLONASS hopes drivers to equip cars with ERA-GLONASS willingly

VLADIVOSTOK, Mar 23 (PRIME) -- Russia’s GLONASS, an operator of automated information system ERA-GLONASS, wants all motorists to voluntarily equip their vehicles with the system, the company’s acting CEO Andrei Zheregelya said on Thursday.

“We plan to create and design commercial services, whose implementation in the future will inspire all to install our device…This task is our priority. Not restrictive measures are in question, but rewarding ones,” Zheregelya told reporters.

A first pilot device of ERA-GLONASS, was installed on Thursday on a secondhand Honda Accord, manufactured in 2005.

“A temporarily order will be in force across the country, while we’re testing it in the Primorsky Region (in the Far East), because imports (of foreign cars) are the biggest here…The system works automatically (and not only). Although, nobody can guarantee that the system functions in this case, because secondhand cars have not passed a crash test,” Zheregelya said.

GLONASS has two centers to process calls, in Moscow and the Kursk Region, in the central part of the country.

Starting from January 1, all passenger and cargo vehicles, launched in Russia for the first time, must be equipped with ERA-GLONASS.

The ground-based ERA-GLONASS navigation information infrastructure is built to serve all roads in the country, and vehicles equipped with GLONASS/GPS navigation communication terminals. The system cuts the time of emergency services’ coming to emergency scenes by 30% on average, according to information on its Web site

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