While you might be far from a cell-phone tower in the Outback, you’re never far from a LandCruiser. These vehicles outnumber cell-phone installations in Australia 30 to 1.

So we launched the LandCruiser Emergency Network (L.E.N.); an ongoing project aiming to bring emergency communications to the 5.3 million square kilometres of Australia’s landmass that currently receives no mobile signal.

By leveraging Australia’s most widely used 4x4, it’s possible for us to bring emergency communications to some of the most remote parts of the continent.

We engaged the experts in Rural, Remote and Humanitarian Telecommunications from Flinders University to help develop small, inexpensive, signal-providing devices that turn volunteers’ LandCruisers into communications hotspots with a range of up to 25km, close to what an ordinary cell-phone tower provides. Together, these vehicles create an emergency communications network anywhere it’s needed.

Once we had the idea of a roving emergency network, we engaged Flinders University remote communications experts to help develop the LandCruiser Emergency Network (L.E.N.) and device.

The result was a simple, inexpensive, signal-providing device engineered to use a combination of Wi-Fi, UHF and Delay-Tolerant-Networking (DTN) technology to turn vehicles into communications hotspots each with up to 25km range.

During emergencies, anyone within range can use the network to log a call or geo-tagged message straight from their ordinary mobile phone. Data is then securely passed between LandCruisers, on a store-and-forward basis, until it reaches a network base-station and first responders can be alerted.

Testing began in July 2015, with a full-scale pilot program initiated in August 2015 across a 50,000km2 area of remote Flinders Ranges.

This ongoing pilot is part of the larger project aiming to bring emergency communications to remote communities across Australia and around the world.

Thousands of messages have been successfully tested, with a pilot program launched in August 2015 across a 50,000km2 area of the remote Flinders Ranges in Outback Australia.

The successful pilot is just the first step:

• Toyota’s Product Planning Department is currently exploring distribution and integration of L.E.N. into LandCruisers in Australia and around the world.

• NGO’s, Emergency Services and Government agencies around Australasia have sought involvement with the project, with the aim of using L.E.N. devices in emergency responses.

The LandCruiser Emergency Network has successfully brought a means of communication to people who previously had almost no way of communicating with the outside world in times of emergency.