Chinese officials have expressed interest in participating in a Russian emergency response system, the CEO of Russia's Navigation Information Systems told RIA Novosti.

The system, called ERA-GLONASS, provides data from Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System to emergency responders. Based on the European eCall/E112 standard, ERA-GLONASS allows emergency services to immediately pinpoint the location of car accidents or similar critical situations.

NIS CEO Alexander Gurko said a Russian-Chinese commission had discussed the matter during talks on Friday in the Far East, attended by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the space industry.

"Our colleagues from China are very interested in our experience, they asked us to tell them more about the ERA-GLONASS satellite system. It was suggested to create a working group and eventually, perhaps, a joint service provider on the basis of such a system," Gurko said.

China could potentially implement the ERA-GLONASS system in combination with its own network of navigation satellites, called BeiDou. The system is also compatible with the US GPS satellite constellation.

Gurko added that later this decade all cars sold in a customs union composed of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will be required to be equipped with the system, which can automatically detect the high acceleration of car crashes and automatically alert emergency services to the location of the crash, even if the driver and passengers are incapacitated.

Information about an accident is delivered to the ERA-GLONASS contact centers, where the operators contact the driver to clarify the situation, and then transfer the necessary data police and ambulance dispatchers.

Source: RIA Novosti