The SAIS ECSAD: Emergency Assistance for Road Accidents in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Current Status.

According to international studies on providing first aid to road accident victims, the absence of assistance within the first hour (the "Golden Hour" principle) after an injury increases the fatality rate among severely injured individuals by 30%. To ensure adherence to the "Golden Hour" principle, in 2011, the member countries of the Customs Union adopted the Customs Union Technical Regulation 018/2011 "On the Safety of Wheeled Vehicles" (hereinafter referred to as the Technical Regulation), which mandates the installation of an Automatic Emergency Call Device (hereinafter referred to as AECD) in vehicles. This requirement applies to all countries of the Eurasian Economic Union, and similar systems are being implemented in the EU (E-Call) and the USA (E-911).

To implement the provisions of the Technical Regulation in the Republic of Kazakhstan, a state automated information system for emergency calls in case of accidents and disasters (hereinafter referred to as SAIS ECSAD) has been created and was put into industrial operation by the decision of the interdepartmental commission on January 21, 2019.

The operator of SAIS ECSAD, designated by Order No. 101 of the Ministry of Industry and Infrastructural Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated February 15, 2017, is the Institute of Space Tecnics and Technology, which is the developer of this system. The owner of SAIS ECSAD is the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

SAIS ECSAD operates by installing an AECD in the vehicle and registering it in SAIS ECSAD. The AECD automatically determines the vehicle's coordinates at the moment of an accident and sends an emergency message to SAIS ECSAD. Upon receiving and promptly processing the emergency call, information about the accident is transmitted from SAIS ECSAD to the territorial subdivisions of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Kazakhstan and then to the emergency response services for necessary measures.

Currently, more than 510,000 vehicles are registered in SAIS ECSAD. Since its industrial implementation in January 2019, SAIS ECSAD has received 2,126,833 calls, of which 5,325 were emergency calls. These calls were promptly redirected to emergency response services (112, 102, 103) to provide immediate assistance to victims. Each emergency call indicates a situation from a road accident where there is a risk of fatality for the driver and/or passenger, requiring immediate response from emergency services.

A crucial function of the ECSAD system is the ability to send an emergency call automatically. This is immensely important for participants in severe accidents, where injuries or shock may prevent a person from manually calling for help by pressing the SOS button.

The ECSAD system operates throughout the Republic of Kazakhstan. An ECSAD call is given priority status, allowing mobile operators to transmit the call to the ECSAD operator even under significant network congestion. There are instances when a vehicle owner cannot call emergency services from their mobile phone because it is out of the service area of the mobile operator. However, by pressing the SOS button, these vehicle owners receive assistance.

It should be noted that after the Eurasian Economic Commission's decisions in 2022 made the installation of AECD in vehicles optional, the share of AECD registered in SAIS ECSAD sharply decreased to about 50% of the number of vehicles sold.

The figure below shows the change in the share of AECD registered in SAIS ECSAD from 2021 to 2024[1].

[1] To construct the graph for 2024, the projected values of sold vehicles and registered AERDs are used: The projected number of vehicles sold in 2024 is 160,000 units, based on the sale of 39,839 vehicles in the first three months of 2024, according to information obtained from the resource "Official Vehicle Sales Statistics in Kazakhstan" by VERcity. The projected number of AEСDs registered in SAIS ECSAD by the end of 2024 is 90,000, based on approximately 46,900 vehicles registered in SAIS ECSAD in the first half of 2024.

Thus, at present, AECDs are non-functional—either not installed or installed but not registered—on half of the vehicles sold in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The owners of these vehicles do not have the ability to use the SOS button to call emergency services and cannot rely on an automatic emergency call in the event of an accident.

A vehicle owner can use the SOS button to call for emergency assistance if the AECD in their vehicle is registered in SAIS ECSAD. There are vehicles in the Republic of Kazakhstan with AERDs installed that meet the Technical Regulations but are not registered in SAIS ECSAD. These vehicles are imported from the Russian Federation, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia or manufactured in Kazakhstan. This situation arises due to the reluctance of dealership centers to promptly register with the SAIS ECSAD Operator.

The lack of AECD registration in SAIS ECSAD prevents vehicle owners from utilizing the main advantage of this system—timely notification of emergency services in the event of an accident. This situation leads to negative feedback about SAIS ECSAD from vehicle owners.

For vehicles with AECDs installed but not registered in SAIS ECSAD, the Institute of Space Engineering and Technology initiated a legalization project on September 28, 2023. From that date to the present, unregistered vehicles in SAIS ECSAD have been automatically registered when the vehicle owner presses the SOS button or when the AECD is triggered automatically in an accident. Thanks to this project, an additional 11,593 vehicles have been registered in SAIS ECSAD.

Vehicles equipped with AECDs became true lifesavers during the blizzard that struck the Aktobe region in February 2024. Despite warnings from the Ministry of Emergency Situations  and the closure of national and regional roads, hundreds of vehicles continued to travel on snow-covered highways and found themselves trapped. Vehicle owners faced serious problems when attempting to reach rescue services via mobile phones. In these conditions, vehicle owners whose cars were equipped with AERDs were able to call for help by pressing the SOS button in their vehicles. By doing so, they not only saved their own lives but also helped others in distress. All calls received by the ECSAD system during the blizzard were properly processed and forwarded to the emergency services. Emergency response teams were dispatched to the locations of the vehicles.