The problem

Thousands of people lose their lives in road accidents on European roads every year, 95% of which are due to human error. Driverless cars and lorries can drastically reduce these numbers and improve road safety. Thanks to the latest developments in digital technologies, like robotics and artificial intelligence, self-driving cars have now become reality. Unfortunately, however, there are some issues linked to the use of Automated Vehicles (AVs) which still have to be resolved, like:

• the ongoing lack of experience in the use of AVs for road, rail, maritime and air transport;
• the lack of clarity in the acceptance and behaviour of AV drivers in different environments and different modes of transport;
• the dearth of studies on the prediction of the long-term impacts of AVs, with particular attention to the sector of automated urban services of passenger services on request and freight transport;
• the lack of business models for the diffusion of AVs on the market.

Our approach

With the Drive2theFuture project our work group, together with 30 international partners, aims to:

• create training programmes on AVs for public transport drivers, taxi drivers, driving instructors, rail operators, automated ship operators and drone operators;
• identify and analyse typical categories, like drivers, travellers and stakeholders involved or interested in AVs and the contextual identification of their needs for the creation of case studies;
• create a platform and simulation instruments on the acceptance of AVs;
• create demos on business models suitable for dissemination on the automated vehicles market.

Partners

CERTH/HIT, VTI, National Technical University of Athens, IFSTTAR, HUMANIST, WEGEMT, UITP, FIA, VIAS Institute, STELAR Security Technology Law Research UG and others