PRESS RELEASE: International event on urban road transport automation in La Rochelle : CityMobil2 as a highly innovative project
On 30 and 31 March 30th and 31st, more than 100 experts from all over the world, from Europe, the US, Japan and to EU to Singapore met in La Rochelle (France) to take partparticipate in a series of events related to CityMobil2 and to road vehicle automation organised in the context of the European project CityMobil2.
Together with Mr. Jean-François Fountaine, La Rochelle Mayor, Mr. Jean-François Janin, representative of the French Ministry and Mr. Patrick Mercier from the European Commission, international guests werehad been offered the opportunity to ride on the CityMobil2 Automated Road Transport System, which is beingin demonstratedion in La Rochelle since December 2014. It is so far the first ever fully automated public transport system in service using fully automated vehiclestoand shareing the roads with manually driven vehicles, pedestrian and cyclists.
The week started with a high-quality Reference Group meeting of urban transport stakeholders, notably city authorities and public transport representatives, to debate the role and expectations of cities regarding road transport automation. A number of key issues emerged from this meeting, including urban planning and design and business model: How can cities plan for road automation? How will road automation change the shape of our cities? What type of business model can be developed to deliver road passenger transport automation?
. The members of the group who are all stakeholders with a keen interest in automated transport systems discussed the relevance of automation, both for individual cars and for public fleets and the role of local authorities in the deployment of automated fleets. “XXXX” says Suzanne Hoadley from Polis, CityMobil2 Dissemination Coordinator.
During the a subsequent socio-economic impacts workshoplong-term socio-economic impact assessment workshop, international experts discussed the long-term impacts of road vehicle automation in different urban environments (compact cities, sprawled cities, connected cities and rural areas) and for two different scenarios:, the first assuming thatthe dominance of private car automation of road vehicles without a shift from ownership to sharing; whereas , the second envisioning a a more stronger role for automated vehicles operating in shared mode (public transport, car sharing/clubs, etc)radical behavioural, city and public transport organization, and regulatory changes making the usage of collective fleets of shared vehicles or riding the predominant mode in our cities. would come first from public transport and the second assuming it would come from private cars. The experts werehave been invited to assess the potential impacts of automation on the economy, the urban mobility, the environment and the society.
The pros and cons of the two caricatural scenarios – automation with and without a paradigm shift to shared mobility – were debatedhave been thought off and a number of , highlighting potential expected impacts were identified in terms of old jobs (reduction of employment in traditional car making activities), new jobs (creation of new services), personal trips costs, public budget (reduction of fines and parking fee revenues), insurance costs, accessibility enabling the development of remote areas, road capacity and its use (with the potential optimization of traffic flowns from automated driving), journey comfort and convenience, energy and emissions, land use, new use of public spaceurban requalification and infrastructure modifications, social impacts in terms of safety, personal security, health and active travel (the latter may be counterproductive, to the extent that automated rides may have a potential to substitute for short distance walking or cycling in compact cities), and different perception/ and use of time spent travelling in automated vehiclesmode.
A lively two-day discussion highlighted the revolutionary potential of automation and also pointed out the need of for accompanying policies to secure the benefitsget the best effects of automation whilst minimisingwithout suffering its potential negative impacts. “There are different market opportunities for exploiting autonomatedous vehicles depending on the urban form – automation in highly densely populated metropolitan areasies should exploit more the potential advantages of vehicle sharing, while a smart use of automatednomous vehicles in peri-urban towns and rural areas can increase flexibility and reduce car dependency – one car becoming more easily shareable by different members of the household, and rdeducing the need for a second cars”XXXX” says Carlo Sessa, Research Director at ISIS (we should spell full “ the Institute of Studies for the Integration of Systems.” not to make confusion with the Islamic State? )
A full report of the workshop will be published in May 2015 for the expert and the scientific community at large to comment upon.
The second large-scale demonstration of an automated road passenger transport system was inaugurated on 16 April 2015 at the EPFL campus in Lausanne (Switzerland) in the presence of the presidents of France and Switzerland.
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CityMobil2 project:
CityMobil2 CityMobil2 is a multi-stakeholder project co-funded by the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (commonly known as FP7). CityMobil2 is settinghas set up a pilot platform for automated road transport systems, which arewill being implemented in several urban environments across Europe. Automated transport systems are made up of vehicles operating without a driver in collective mode.
Event in La Rochelle:
The French coastal town of La Rochelle is the site of one of the main CityMobil2 demonstrations of automated road passenger transport systems, which is operatinged from December 2014 until March 2015 (?).
Further information:
Dr. Adriano Alessandrini, CityMobil2 Project Coordinator,
email:
Carlos Holguin, CityMobil2 Project Manager,
email:
Suzanne Hoadley, CityMobil2 Dissemination Coordinator,
email:
The sole responsibility for the content of this press release lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the European Union. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
Page | 1CityMobil2 press release April 2015