MOSCOW. March 6 (Interfax) - NP GLONASS, the noncommercial partnership to promote the development and use of the GLONASS satellite navigation system, and Belarus' SKB Kamerton will jointly create a Belarusian equivalent to Russia's ERA-GLONASS emergency accident response system, the partnership's president, Alexander Gurko said at an ERA-GLONASS conference in Moscow.
The Belarusian system will be compatible with Russia's ERA-GLONASS and Europe's eCall system for rapid assistance to motorists.
"This strategic partnership in the area of navigation services will help establish a unified navigational information space within the Union State [of Russia and Belarus] and provide navigational information support for transport corridors throughout our countries," Gurko said.
In addition to creating the system itself, the partners plan to work on projects to support automatic enforcement of traffic rules and automatic issuing of tickets for violations.
In December 2012, the governments of Russia and Kazakhstan signed a memorandum on cooperation in creating an emergency response system using ERA-GLONASS and the possible development of additional navigational information services for transport on its basis.
The deputy chairman of the transport control committee at Kazakhstan's Transport Ministry, Omash Sergazy said his country has completed the feasibility study for the project. The system is scheduled to launch in 2015. There are plans to begin creating the system in two pilot zones in Kazakhstan at the end of this year.
Russian Deputy Transport Minister Alexei Tsydenov said that the economic benefits of the ERA-GLONASS system in Russia, which is scheduled for commercial launch in 2014, will amount to about 61 billion rubles by 2020. Overall, the use of navigational information solutions based on GLONASS could annually add 500 billion rubles to Russia's GDP.
NP GLONASS, the federal network operator for navigation services, was appointed the sole project administrator for ERA-GLONASS in September 2012 by government order. Earlier, it was charged with developing the Russian navigation market on the basis of the GLONASS system.
The founders of NP GLONASS are NIS GLONASS, Yandex, Megafon, Rostelecom subsidiary RTComm.ru, Summa Telecom and the association GLONASS/GNSS - Forum.