On October 8, 2014 the federal navigation network operator NP “GLONASS” held the 4th International Congress “ERA-GLONASS: Modern Technologies for Comfort and Safety on Roads”.
 
The Congress was opened with the welcome address by Vladimir Kononov, the 1st Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee on Science and High Technology. He noted that on October 23, 2013 the State Duma had passed the Federal Law “About the State Automated Information System “ERA-GLONASS”, and on January 1, 2014 it had come into force. “In our country the information systems are very rarely put into operation by passing a special law. It says about the big importance, which our state places on the ERA-GLONASS project,” he emphasized, and also pointed out expected results of the system introduction: saving lives and health damages, reducing expenses on the rectification of accident consequences, forming new mass market of GLONASS-based navigation and information services.
 
Alexei Semyenov, Director of the Department of Development Programs of the Ministry of Transport of Russia confirmed that the ERA-GLONASS system, as it had been planned, would be put into constant operation starting January 1, 2015, and announced that the system services would cover the most distant regions, and the ERA-GLONASS ready solutions could be exported to any countries. Also he pointed out that “The Russian President has made the main decision on the development of the ERA-GLONASS System”. For these purposes they are founding OJSC GLONASS, which will take over the whole system and all its assets”.
 
Lyudmila Yurasova, Vice President of NP “GLONASS”, told about an ultimate work on creating the infrastructure, developing technical, regulatory and legal bases, interacting with equipment manufacturers, car makers, state authorities. In her speech she pointed out that “Today, 84 days before putting into commercial operation, the system has passed tests and operates in 83 subjects of the Russian Federation. The accident data delivery time is not more than 20 seconds, and at average this time is 10 seconds”.
«The active work has started to harmonize standards of the Customs Union and China. There is a big work lying ahead, we are at the beginning of our journey, but we hope that the result will as positive as the one of the harmonization with the European eCall System,” Lyudmila shared.
 
 
In the framework of the Congress there were five round tables and panel discussions. The Congress attendees have discussed important issues of implementing and using the ERA-GLONASS System: deploying in Russia, its legal and regulatory base, interacting with emergency services, developing system-based navigation and information services, the role of MNOs in the project, interacting while creating emergency response systems in Kazakhstan and Belarus, harmonizing the Russian system with the European eCall, as well as the Chinese  Beidou, readiness of car makers to introduce the ERA-GLONASS system.
 
Over 500 delegates from 15 countries of the world have participated in the Congress. Among them there were heads of Russian and foreign car concerns, such as BMW, Mercedes Benz, Volvo, Ford, Toyota, AVTOVAZ, KAMAZ, GAZ, mobile network operators (MTS, Beeline, MegaFon), component and automobile electronics manufacturers, as well as technical regulation specialists from Russia and Europe.