The European commission transport policy for 2010 sets new targets with respect to road safety. These targets can only be reached by an integrated approach for vehicle safety systems, i.e. the combination of active and passive safety systems where actions will address all phases of a crash, including pre-crash and post-crash. From a technical point of view today's safety systems are mostly stand- alone systems with a limited degree of interdependencies. These systems have to be integrated -combined with upcoming enhanced telematic services- into a complete network of so-called Integrated Safety Systems.

For the realization of such Integrated Safety Systems a powerful and highly dependable in-vehicle electronic architecture and an appropriate development support is mandatory. Those elements which are not competitive relevant for OEMs and suppliers have to be standardized to achieve an improvement of system quality at shorter development times and lower system costs.

The goal of the EASIS project is to define and develop these enabling technologies, that is:
- A platform for software-based functionality in vehicle electronic systems will be defined providing common services upon which future applications can be built.
- A vehicle on-board electronic hardware infrastructure which supports the requirements of integrated safety systems in a cost effective manner will be specified.
- Methods and techniques for handling critical dependability-related parts of the development lifecycle will be analysed, adapted, extended and defined.
- An engineering process and a suitable tool chain will be defined, enabling the application of integrated safety systems.

At last all results will be validated by two different domain- overlapping demonstrators. The EASIS project will therewith not only contribute to increased road safety, it will also strengthen the competitiveness of the European Automotive Industry in the area of vehicle electronics and safety functions.