2018-2020 Digitising and Transforming European Industry and Services: Automated Road Transport

Call summary and aims

Significant progress has been made in key technologies for innovative connected and automated driving (CAD) functions and applications (e.g. advanced vehicle control, vehicle localization systems, data processing, artificial intelligence, user interfaces, etc.). Many demonstration projects are already ongoing where automated driving functions are tested in different use cases. The previous call on "Automated Road Transport" in the Transport Workprogramme 2016/17 focused on vehicles with functions for automated driving level 3, which are expected to enter the market in the next few years.

The overall objective of this call is to promote a wide market introduction of highly automated driving systems towards SAE level 4[[Definition of SAE Level 4 – High Automation: "the driving mode-specific performance by an automated driving system of all aspects of the dynamic driving task, even if a human driver does not respond appropriately to a request to intervene".]]. The call will focus on large-scale demonstrations to test the performance and safety of innovative highly automated driving systems for passenger cars, efficient freight transport operations and shared mobility services in urban areas. Furthermore the changing role of the driver and how to account for it by human centred design of automated vehicles will be addressed.

The Call 2018-2020 Automated Road Transport is part of the Focus Area "Digitising and transforming European industry and services". Demonstrations will look at testing the use of digital, connectivity as well as satellite navigation technologies for optimised connected and automated driving functions (including the EGNOS and Galileo). Digital technologies, such as Big Data, the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence techniques provide a great potential for developing innovative automated driving functions and mobility solutions for the future. Communication and cooperation of automated vehicles with other vehicles, infrastructure and other road users can increase the safety, comfort, productivity and the enabling of innovative business models of automated vehicles and improve the efficiency of the overall transport system.

By supporting innovative connected and automated driving technologies and mobility solutions, the call will help to create new global market opportunities for European industry and strengthen the position of Europe as a world leader in innovative mobility. Actions under this call are expected to contribute to more road safety as well as to better traffic flow, less congestion, fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. New shared and fully automated mobility services can help decrease the total number of cars on the road, alleviating the overall traffic. Actions will contribute to UN's Sustainable Development Goals 11 (Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable) and 3.6 (By 2020, halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents).

In addition to the topics of this call, actions related to "Automated Road Transport" are included in the "Mobility for Growth" call of this part of the Work Programme as well as in other parts of the Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2018-2020. The call "Mobility for Growth" includes topics on "Human Factors in Transport Safety" (MG-2.1-2018), "Safety in an evolving road and mobility environment" (MG-2.4-2019), "New regulatory frameworks to enable effective deployment of emerging technologies and business models" (MG-4.2-2018) and "Driver behaviour and acceptance of connected, cooperative and automated transport" (MG-3.4-2019), which refer to connected and automated systems and technologies of all transport modes. Cooperation and cross-fertilisation of concepts and technologies across transport modes developed in the different proposals is strongly encouraged. The LEIT/ICT work programme includes a topic on "5G for connected and automated driving". This topic addresses the applicability of 5G connectivity to "Connected and Automated Driving" use cases.