Call: Full-scale demonstration of urban road transport automation

1. Excellent Science
2. Industrial Leadership
3. Societal Challenges

Within this programme Horizon 2020 will provide funding for a resource efficient transport that respects the environment, aims at a better mobility, less congestion, more safety and security, supports a global leadership for the European transport industry and targets a socio-economic and behavioural research and forward looking activities for policy making.

Road transport automation holds the promise to help addressing many of the major challenges of today's transport system, such as user safety, energy efficiency, air quality and congestion, and at the same time, it represents a critical testing ground for the ability of the European automotive industry to preserve and consolidate its global leadership. Automation technology is rapidly evolving. Building on Cooperative InformationTechnology Services (ITS) and advances in ICT, such as connectivity, cloud computing and big data, as well as on satellite navigation technologies, automated road transport will enable driving strategies which are safe, sustainable and efficient on the level of the whole transport system. It will also facilitate the deployment of novel transport services and applications, and innovative infrastructure solutions. Current technology will evolve further towards semi-automation and eventually towards full automation in normal moving traffic. This evolution is very promising and may help to drastically reduce fatal traffic casualties to near zero, as more than 90% of road accidents are due to human errors.

The trend towards automation will however present numerous challenges in terms of technology and component development, human-machine interactions, testing of automatic vehicles in real life conditions, transition scenarios including impact on traffic volumes and transport management, legislative/regulatory implications, integration with infrastructure, and aspects of user behaviour and public acceptance.

Specific topics of the calls:

• ICT infrastructure to enable the transition towards road transport automation
• Automation pilots for passenger cars
• Multi-Brand platooning in real traffic conditions
• Safety and end-user acceptance aspects of road automation in the transition period
• Full-scale demonstration of urban road transport automation
• Road Infrastructure to support the transition to automation and the coexistence of conventional and automated vehicles on the same network
• Coordination of activities in support of road automation

Fully automated road transport systems have the potential to revolutionise urban transport offering high quality public transport services which are not feasible with conventional public transport systems. Low speed full automation systems have been demonstrated in several European cities. However full-scale demonstrations are still necessary to prove the reliability, safety and robustness of fully automated road transport systems in complex scenarios in urban areas. In addition, it is necessary to address the remaining questions, such as user acceptance and legal framework and to develop business cases to make fully automated urban road transport systems economically viable.

At least three legal entities. Each of the three must be established in a different EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country. All three legal entities must be independent of each other. 

In line with the Union's strategy for international cooperation in research and innovation [COM(2012)497], international cooperation is encouraged. In particular, proposals should foresee twinning with entities participating in projects funded by US DOT [United States Department of Transportation] to exchange knowledge and experience and exploit synergies.

Active participation of SMEs is strongly encouraged.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between 10 to 15 million € each would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

EU Funding rate: 70% (except for non-profit legal entities, where a rate of 100% applies).

Electronic submission here.

Link to the National Contact Point Finder.