Developing and testing shared, connected and cooperative automated vehicle fleets in urban areas for the mobility of all

Topic Description

Shared, connected and cooperative automated vehicles may become a game changer for urban mobility. They can provide seamless door to door mobility of people and freight delivery services, which can lead to healthier, more accessible, greener and more sustainable cities, as long as they are integrated in an effective public transport system. Since a few years the development of shared automated vehicle pilots are emerging around the world. Today, most of these pilots are small-scale and involve either on-demand ride services or low-speed shuttles operating in controlled environments. In order to accelerate the uptake of high quality and user oriented mobility services, based on shared, connected and cooperative automated vehicles, there is a need for demonstrating these services in real life conditions to test the performance, safety and viability of these systems and services and to prove that they are attractive for and accepted by users. Furthermore, the potential impacts on reducing CO₂ emissions and pollutants, safety and overall transport system costs need to be assessed.

The proposed actions should include all the following aspects:

• Thorough analysis of new, emerging business/operating models and related technologies for shared, connected and cooperative automated vehicle fleets that are complementing existing high-capacity public transportation systems.
• Design innovative shared, connected, cooperative and automated vehicle concepts (road vehicles at SAE level 4 and higher) and the associated new business/operating models addressing user and customer needs, including cultural aspects, for mobility of people and/or delivery of goods. Specific user needs in different regional and operating environments and for different user groups, e.g. elderly, children and users with disabilities should be considered and attractiveness and acceptability by all users should be ensured. The potential of combining automated urban delivery and people transportation should be addressed.
• Test robustness, reliability and safety of shared highly automated vehicle fleets that are operating in semi-open or open environments focusing on the interaction with other road users, including pedestrians, cyclists and public transport systems. The fleets should consist of electrified vehicles. Synergies with advanced energy efficient, smart and multimodal mobility concepts should be actively developed. Fleet management should include operational optimisation as well as energy management. Fleet tests should consider the entire "functional urban area" and explicitly include feeder services and other collective transport options in peri-urban and low-density urban areas.
• Vehicles should use connectivity technologies to allow communication and cooperation between vehicles, infrastructure and with other road users and to enable automated, smart mobility services, innovative fleet management concepts and higher performance of automated vehicle functions. Proposals should make the best use of EGNOS and Galileo which significantly improve the vehicle positioning availability and reliability. The development of solutions for the next generation of cooperative services^[1] by efficiently combining C-ITS and automation for smart, smooth, safe and efficient traffic flows (including the development and testing of "open message definitions" for all C-ITS stakeholders) would be an asset.
• Identify and provide for the needs of vulnerable road users (including their potential re-definition to include non-connected users, out-of-position passengers in automated cars, cyclists, pedestrians, etc.) resulting from this new automated/mixed environment (use of standard & highly automated vehicles).
• Develop architecture, functional and technical requirements for ICT technologies, for secure data collection and processing needed for the operation of connected and cooperative automated vehicles. Develop ways to enhance the optimised use of big data in (road) transport for implementing smart and safe mobility solutions, innovative traveller services and (city) traffic management.
• Fulfil all security requirements to protect the shared automated vehicles to any threats and avoid any conscious manipulations of the information enabling automated driving.
• Assess and demonstrate benefits of the pilot implementation on energy efficiency, traffic flow, safety, user appreciation etc, based on holistic modelling solutions.

In line with the Union's strategy for international cooperation in research and innovation, international cooperation is encouraged. In particular, proposals should consider cooperation with projects or partners from the US, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and/or Australia. Proposals should foresee twinning with entities participating in projects funded by US DOT to exchange knowledge and experience and exploit synergies.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU between EUR 15 and 30 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Proposals will test the overall mobility impact, in particular, how shared mobility solutions using connected and cooperative automated vehicles can contribute to a more sustainable, inclusive, and safe mobility system and help residents of a city/region (in particular less mobile persons, elderly and children) to increase mobility and improve urban freight transport efficiency. Proposed actions will help to reduce the total number of passenger cars and goods km in cities, overall CO₂ emissions and energy consumption. They will improve market opportunities for SME's and new-entrants by addressing and developing innovative cross-sector business models. Actions will create strategic partnering opportunities between public agencies and the private sector for developing sustainable and scalable business models. They will also support the accelerated deployment of electrified vehicles for shared automated mobility services and integrated strategies for a smart and multi-modal mobility system and urban development, including land use and ITS and infrastructure development.

Socio-economic science and humanities
International cooperation

[1]Beyond Day 1 and Day 1.5 services, as defined in COM(2016)766, the European Strategy for C-ITS